


Just Being

by The_Clever_Magpie (Metal_mako_dragon)



Series: Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Alpha Hannibal, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Comfort Food, Domestic, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Fertility Issues, Fluff and Angst, Hallucinations, Hannibal in Love, Loneliness, M/M, Marriage, Masturbation, Omega Will Graham, Phone Sex, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, blink and you miss it jealousy, mentions of rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:33:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 63,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4960810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metal_mako_dragon/pseuds/The_Clever_Magpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I dislike missing you,” he said as the rustle returned, the newspaper folding, “but absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Hannibal’s right hand carded unexpectedly through his hair, making Will’s eyes close in pleasure, “as they say.”</p><p>-----------</p><p>Another series of timestamps for 'Il Faut Souffrir Pour Etre Beau', though they can be taken as stand alone stories. These will focus on Will and Hannibal's marriage, during the happier times before everything fell apart. As requested by the wonderful Lara and LovelyLeniece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Distance/Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LovelyLeniece](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLeniece/gifts), [for lara](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=for+lara).



Cave-like. Dark, yet enough overspill from the open door to illuminate vague forms; the dresser in the corner, with the wardrobe tall and monolithic at its side; the hope chest, carved and ornate; the bottom of the white duvet cover embroidered with thick golden thread, drooping over the pine. Above it the bed, carrying within its care the long, sloping outline of a body.

On sock clad feet he walked carefully inside, leaving the door open like a lantern guide. The mattress gave comfortably beneath his hands as he climbed up, crawling over to settle behind the shape laying upon his side. One hand tucked up under his head, the other reaching out to trace the faintest outline of skin. _Shoulder blade_ , he could feel, _up to the dusky hairs at the nape of his neck._

The skin shivered and he smiled, listening as the breathing, which had been so silent, flared on a long inhale, then out in the same fashion. Leaning in, he followed the invisible line his fingers had left, of bone under skin with the tip of his nose, feeling his way up to the neck. A long breath in, _mirrored_ , eyes open and hand straying to curl across the supine body pressed to him.

“You showered when you got home?” Will asked as he felt the body beside him wake, “I didn’t hear you.”

A soft, sleepy laugh from behind closed lips. Next to him, Hannibal rolled slowly onto his back, giving Will time to accommodate for the shift. The barest hint of eyes were caught in the faint light, opening with three steady blinks.

Three weeks. It had been three weeks of only moments spent together. Will felt as if he were caught in a bizarre limbo-like cycle in which his husband was constantly almost out of reach. Here, curled together, he couldn’t focus on it too closely. Will lifted his hand to brush the hair from Hannibal’s forehead, fingers lingering on the soft skin beside his ear. Barest hint of a smile on full lips.

“Still tired?” Will asked gently.

“I am sure I have slept enough,” Hannibal’s voice was thick and husky.

“When’s your flight again?”

“Six thirty this evening. Time will soon be difficult to deal with, I fear.”

“Only a couple of hours to Chicago,” Will said, tracing his fingers down the curve of Hannibal’s arm.

“Peirce wishes to take me to dinner when I land,” Hannibal explained with little enthusiasm, rubbing at his closed eyes with rough fingers, “Unfortunately we are ensconced at the same hotel for the conference. Enough of an excuse for socialising.”

“Not Thomas Pierce?” Will said with a frown; Hannibal’s soft sigh was his reply, “I didn’t know it was possible to physically be bored to tears, but last time I talked to him I think I was close. Which was at your boss's dinner, wasn’t it?” Hannibal nodded, lifting his left hand to take Will’s own, his fingers chill to the touch, “I’ll never forgive her for those damned place settings. Also,” he added with a small smile, “he clearly has a thing for you.”

“I am well aware,” Hannibal said, lazily running his long fingers over Will’s wrist.

“I’ll have to lay here, fearing for my marriage,” Will said airily, “while Thomas Pierce steals your heart with his in depth analysis of hospital insurance loopholes and the last twenty five cases he’s scored and how he’ll become partner soon, he’s sure, and...dear god that man was dull.”

“You are far too awake,” Hannibal said softly as he stared at the Will from the gloom.

“You won’t be saying that when I tell you I’ve been up long enough to bake the sourdough,” Will said, “and go out for eggs and sausage.”

A moment of quiet, then a shuffling as Hannibal rolled onto his side, facing him. Will laughed quietly as a strong arm hooked him and pulled him close, a mouth rushing to the soft flesh of his throat to scrape sharp canines across the sensitive patch. Always a possessively dominant reaction when Will successfully predicted him.

“My darling, what would I do without you?”

“Make your own breakfast?” Will suggested.

“I would trust no other hands to serve me.”

“I’m sure that sounded more romantic in your head,” Will said, amused, even as Hannibal gripped him tightly.

Laying half atop him, Hannibal fit his head under Will’s chin and puffed hot breath against his clavicle. _Warm and safe_ , was all Will could think as he ran his hand through the soft strands of Hannibal’s hair, _safe and content_. Only six months ago just the thought of this being his reaction to an alpha would have made Will Graham laugh in your face; or bring you down to size with a few choice words. Now, he refused to admit it as hypocrisy and instead labelled it a turn of fate.

Will didn’t consider himself ‘caught and tamed’, mainly because their marriage was hardly conventional. Two halves, that was how Will saw them, two broken halves all patched together. No one else would fit quite right.

“I’m going downstairs,” he kissed the top of Hannibal’s head and then sat up as Hannibal rolled onto his back once more, “give it about seven minutes.”

The blood sausage was thick and brown, and sizzled aromatically in the olive oil. The trip to the butchers that morning had been tipped with excitement. Hannibal had been working himself ragged these past few weeks, what with a large reshuffle at the hospital after the retirement of the head of the surgical department. Lots of politics and position snapping, enough that it reminded Will of FBI interdepartmental power struggles he’d always done his best to avoid.

Always coming home tired, sleeping until noon or after, and then working on reports and propositions and _other_ people’s paperwork or responding to emails. So much so that it was mainly work, lunch and then dinner before Hannibal was back at work on the night shift. He wouldn’t call it lonely, because that wasn’t quite accurate; helpless. Will felt a little helpless, in the face of it all.

So making the sourdough had been pleasing, as had buying the blood sausage and the pale blue duck eggs from their friendly local butcher, _Hannibal was a long time customer and Will had been adopted by association_. Now the eggs cooked in big, fat misshapes, sprinkled with marjoram, nestled in with the sausage and crisping chunks of bread. He was just serving when Hannibal walked in dressed in his heavy green housecoat and took his place at the table, hair run through with fingers rather than a comb.

“Thank you,” he said genuinely as Will set the plate before him.

“Coffee or tea? I made both.”

“Coffee, please.”

Will handed him a cup of black, bitter coffee, poured himself some broken orange pekoe and, once everything was in its place, sat down at his own plate. The first mouthful was warm, succulent but with a crunch of fried bread and the sweet, headiness of the marjoram. Across from him, Hannibal was enjoying his food; Will could tell because his eyes were closed as he chewed, head held perfectly straight, and his coffee was as yet untouched.

A surge of warmth had him taking a drink of his tea. There was still an underlying resentment for such feelings. The very idea that serving his alpha could bring out that euphoria sickened him. Will continually had to re-evaluate his thoughts, set them out and analyse them. Only then could he be happy with the idea that the happiness came from somewhere other than a lowly biological reaction.

 _Hannibal never reacted this way with anyone else._ The thought allowed him to reinstate his previous thoughts. _Two halves of one whole_.

“Good?” he asked, cutting through the yolk and watching it spill.

“An understatement, darling. I feel my body has been craving protein, but recently I have been taking it like medicine. No time for taste. This,” he said, spearing a sliver of sausage, “is truly food for the soul. Did you go to Grossets?”

“Mmm,” Will nodded, humming before he swallowed, “He asked how you were. Made me realise you haven’t been there yourself in a while.”

“I find my time unsavoury,” Hannibal sighed, wiping his mouth with a heavy napkin, “small people scurrying around me, doing small things with small results. Still, it is necessary in the grand scheme.”

“It better be,” Will said, making Hannibal look to him curiously, “or I’d be down there myself asking Marissa why I’ve barely seen you for twenty days. It’s not just the butcher that’s been missing you, you know.”

“And how would you ask her?” Hannibal inquired.

“Physically,” Will said, just on the wrong side of dark.

A warm but knowing smile graced Hannibal’s lips. It had been a minefield, when they’d first met, disentangling the myriad of subtle expressions the man shifted through like water through cracks; almost imperceptible, but noticeable nonetheless, and over time creating streams and rivers big enough to see clearly. Hannibal was a surprisingly private person, despite his seeming love for the social animal. It was an endless amusement for Will to see the polite but disinterested visage of his mate scan the populous at large, only alighting on very few with a spark of genuine curiosity.

And only on one with single minded attention. Will knew the look Hannibal adopted across the dining room table. He wore it often nowadays. _Satisfaction_.

“Such poetry to your imagination,” Hannibal said, then his eyes sparked abruptly as if remembering something, “ah, but I had meant to ask last night, about your consultation yesterday. How was it?”

“Oh. Right. Well...” Will scratched at his forehead and suddenly didn’t feel like eating, “it wasn’t exactly productive.”

“Dr. Findlay came with a high recommendation,” Hannibal said, looking a little put out.

“Well, I mean he was a nice guy,” Will shrugged, trying his best, “but he didn’t have anything new to bring to the table. Just like all the others, really. He diagnosed that my prolonged use of suppressants has created problems with hormones, halting ovulation,” Will knew he was reciting the words mechanically, as if distancing himself from the problem with terminology would make it easier, “he suggested the same hormone therapies I took last time. The ones that didn’t work.”

“I see. No other suggestions?”

“Adoption,” Will said wryly, giving Hannibal a challenging stare, “or surgery.”

“Of which all procedures’ risks far outweigh the benefits. I would not see you under the knife for this.”

“I agree,” Will nodded, even as his eager hormones wished for any reprieve from this barren future.

“Then I will make sure to keep an eye out at the conference, in case anything useful arises,” Hannibal said, “medical science never stands still.”

The fact that he treated it with a certain amount of casualness made Will relax, even as he couldn’t help but worry, deep down. His husband never made a big deal of the revelation of yet another failed attempt. Yet the irritating feeling of worry was still there in Will’s mind, that Hannibal deserved someone who could give him a child, a future. _Would you stop him if he left?_ The question wasn’t considered for long, dismissed as quickly as it always was.

“Thanks.”

“Never feel the need to thank me, darling.”

* * *

 

“Ok, eleven down. Shoenberg’s ‘Moses and something’. Four letters, second is r,” Will drew out the last letter a little as he stuck the top of the stylus in his mouth and ran it over his teeth absently.

Against his back Hannibal moved minutely in his slight slouch, bringing his arm up to wrap it around Will’s waist. In return Will nestled further as he lay on the couch with his legs sprawled and his feet on the arm rest, pressed against Hannibal’s side. Will could feel breath tickling through his hair as Hannibal leaned his face down to look at the back-lit surface of the tablet in Will’s hands; _he could imagine the ever so slight narrowing of eyes, staring head height off into a room somewhere in his vast palace_. There was a rustle as Hannibal adjusted the newspaper on his knees and the breath disappeared.

“Aron,” he said after another pause, his fingers splaying and retracting over Will’s stomach.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Will said as he drew it in messily, “find anything interesting on at the Lyric for when you get back?”

“Nothing jumps out at me,” Hannibal replied.

“I thought you said Fidelio was coming in October?”

“Cancelled. The soprano has contracted laryngitis; normally puts them out of play for weeks. I feel it is a typical example of my luck nowadays.”

“I’ll find something,” Will said as he started on _twenty four down: Oswego tea, four letters, second ‘a’ – mind rummaging quickly and efficiently through his neatly filed alphabet, fingers flicking through pictures and memories of scents and tastes and related subjects_ even as his own tapped against his leg rhythmically, _coming to it as it emerged in his mind, remembering drinking it when he was younger to calm a fever, taken as medicine, different names known under: also known as Bee balm, or blue balm._ He made a soft sound and twirled the stylus into a good hold as he wrote ‘balm’ into the blank white spaces, “there’s always something.”

“Coming home to you is enough of a treat, darling.”

The line was enough to make him laugh absently, taking a moment to focus on the hand against his abdomen, its soothing rhythm pulsing like a heartbeat. The sorts of words he should despise for their placation, but instead accepted for their truth.

“Smooth talker.”

“You must give me some practice,” Hannibal said, the rustling returning along with a waft of air against his right arm as the newspaper was turned over, “I will need to be sufficiently charming at this conference. Didera Callis is attending on the second and third days. I am adamant to ensnare her.”

“Callis, Callis,” Will repeated the name as he continued his puzzle, “I recognise that name. Is she Health Board?”

“Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of St James. A be all and end all sort.”

“Yes, I remember,” _twenty two across, insect catcher, three letters:_ ‘net’, the stylus squiggled; Will sounded dry as he spoke, “she’s one of the ladder riders, as you so nicely put it.”

“There was a modicum of nepotism in her choice for the post. Still, I am willing to exploit myself for the sake of an unfair tactic. Though I will be taken on merit rather than connections. Head of surgery is still up in the air, and I know they have candidates chosen.”

“They’ll lose what little respect I have for them if they pass you over for heading up the unit.”

“Your support is welcome,” Hannibal’s voice was tinged with familiar warmth.

“I only endorse what I’ve already tested.”

“Then I am glad I’ve made such a good impression,” Hannibal said, amused; the hand continued its hypnotic tempo, only stuttering when Will took his stylus in his lips and reached down to run his fingers over the back of Hannibal’s hand, light enough to barely tickle the fine hairs.

“Now you’re just fishing for compliments,” Will smiled, mumbling around the stylus tucked into the corner of his mouth, “Twenty eight across, father of King Hadad, Genisis thirty six, thirty five. I’ve got the last letter as d.”

“Bedad,” Hannibal said without missing a beat, continuing as if by rote, “before there reigned any king of the Israelites. His name is oddly fitting.”

“Oh?” Will asked as he wrote it almost unintelligibly with his left hand.

“It means solitary, alone.”

“Don’t go all sentimental on me,” Will said wryly, even as he linked his fingers with Hannibal’s when the other sought his touch.

“I dislike missing you,” he said as the rustle returned, the newspaper folding, “but absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Hannibal’s right hand carded unexpectedly through his hair, making Will’s eyes close in pleasure, “as they say.”

It was enough, in that moment. Feeling, Will had found, was a constant between them, whether it be touch, sight, talk, memory, sharing, _just-being_. There was a resonance, an understanding simple enough to give them both peace. As Will sighed comfortably, Hannibal’s long fingers trailing his scalp to leave a disorder of curls and waves in his wake, that same link resonated like a tightly pulled string. Bound and tied with a tight knot, enough that even compounded human experience encapsulated in a neat little proverb couldn’t truly do it justice. Not for Will.

“What time is it?” he asked, his voice thick with contentment and pleasure.

“Nearly three.”

The contented feeling slipped slightly but caused greater damage than it should, the fault line of their touch shifting by a mere centimetre, enough to cause an earthquake. Enough to tear and topple. _Don’t go all sentimental on me_. Will wished his words could be closer to the truth.

“I’ll make you something for the plane,” Will said suddenly, sitting up to put his tablet on the table and then stand, feeling antsy and out of place, “even first class food is plastic crap these days. There’s leftover roast beef from last night. I’ll make you some of that Vietnamese anise thing you liked the other month. We’ve got rice, cardamoms. I’ll put it in a tub. Sound ok?”

In answer Hannibal put his newspaper onto the coffee table, perfectly aligned with the right angle of the corner, and stood to kiss him. _Always the sort of answer Will resented and yet longed for._ A last kiss for a while now. Will held onto it.

“Smooth in more ways than just talking are we?” Will murmured against soft lips as Hannibal stayed close, noses bumping, “Hope you’re not practicing this technique too.”

“Heaven forbid,” Hannibal smiled with the right side of his mouth, eyes bright and alive, watching him intently.

* * *

 

It had started raining by the time they’d bundled into Will’s Volvo truck and headed for Baltimore Washington International. The windscreen wipers made an irritating whine as they wiped the steady droplets to the side, a waterfall of colour caught from passing headlamps and traffic lights.

“I’d say I hope you get better weather,” Will said, looking up to the glum sky, making night seem quicker what with the heavy clouds blocking the sky, “but you’ll be stuck in the conference centre. Probably for the best, the forecast is pretty horrendous for the next few days.”

Which was when he realised he was talking about the weather and forced himself to stop. Hannibal stayed quiet, even as Will could see him glancing surreptitiously at him whenever he thought Will wasn’t looking. The lights changed and Will pulled out, turning right with a few other cars to head along the curving tarmac to the departures entrance. Above them planes landed and took off in the miserable air. Will listened to the thump and whine of the wipers and chewed at the inside of his bottom lip.

Departures was a little crowded, forcing them out from under the protection of the building’s purpose built roof.

“Just give it a few minutes,” Will said, “someone’ll move.”

“We’re later than I thought,” Hannibal said, checking his watch, “I should have considered the weather.”

“It’s only...” Will looked at the little clock on his dashboard and read it aloud, “five to six. Shit. Sorry, I didn’t realise,” he dragged his hand across his face roughly; the antsy feeling still hadn’t left.

“No harm done, darling,” Hannibal said softly, reaching up to touch his arm; Will leaned in and allowed the kiss, awkward as it was over the gear stick. It lingered and Will found himself running his hand over Hannibal’s hair, down onto the skin of his throat above his shirt collar.

“You should go, in case they stop you at security again.”

“That was a simple case of mistaken identity,” Hannibal said with equal amounts reproach and delight.

“They did apologise,” Will said, smiling, “if it happens again maybe you can wangle a few free flights out of them as compensation.”

“If it happens again,” Hannibal said, tone a little dry, “I will be convinced I have a doppelganger.”

“Call me when you land?” Will said as Hannibal opened the door out into the rain, the sounds of airport tannoys and cars filtering over the sound of the wipers and the weather.

“I will,” Hannibal said as Will handed him his bags, “Goodbye, dearest.”

“Bye.”

The drive home seemed a little cold and too quiet, even though they’d hardly talked on the journey there. Little things were missing, the soft breathing, the shift of material, the subtle scent of Hannibal’s cologne and his heady musk. The seat beside him felt absent.

On coming home Will decided not to judge himself on the fact that the first thing he did was go to their room, find Hannibal’s green, heavy wool jumper he’d been wearing for the past few days, and slip into it.

He fell asleep on the sofa a few hours later after a meager dinner of leftovers, some program he hadn’t been paying attention to on BBC America about the Celts playing unnoticed on the television, the neck of the jumper pulled up over his chin and mouth.

Content, but alone.

* * *

 

By the sixth ring, Will was biting at his thumb nail.

“Come on,” he muttered softly to no one, rolling over to lie on his back and stare at the ceiling.

It had been a slow day, enough to leave him feeling more bereft than he was sure was reasonable. It had started promising, with approval coming through for his research grant, but then had fallen down when he realised it would take three weeks to process. No way to start anything big, no way to go ahead with the things he did have planned, and he knew he should be planning out the budget for his project but...

He didn’t feel up to it. Things were too quiet. The house was empty from room to room. He’d gone for a walk to their local park to eat his lunch, but the presence of other people became an irritant. The bright sunshine had attracted families and children ran across the grass unheeded by others, screaming and shouting. Watching them had felt like staring at his own inadequacy.

The feeling was always there, _that he’d done this to himself_. The suppressants had been a part of his life since he was sixteen, making it possible to function as an unbonded omega in a world where that was truly not an option, and only now, after years of faithful service, had they betrayed him.

Will hadn’t been able to stand looking at the little girl climbing the tree or the three little boys throwing bread into the duck pond. _Would you stop him if he left?_ the question kept returning, no matter how many times he shooed it away. He felt heavier when he returned. The house was quiet. Two days without another voice within its walls was seeming like an age.

“Come _on_ , pick up,” Will said a little more forcefully, sitting up in bed and shivering as the blankets fell away from his bare chest; it was as he was leaning awkwardly off the bed to reach for the wool jumper that the rings stopped. Will grabbed the garment and sat up quickly, hoping he didn’t sound too eager when he said, “Hannibal?”

“Hello? Is that Will?”

A stranger’s voice. Will stalled, fingers tight around the jumper in his fist. The sound of voices in the background. A strange sort of anxiety rose in his chest.

“Yes,” he said, feeling utterly lost, “who is this?”

“It’s Tom. Tom Pierce. We met at Marissa’s dinner the other month?”

“Uh huh.”

“Right, well, I just thought I’d answer and tell you Hannibal’s indisposed at the moment. You want me to tell him you called?”

“Yes,” Will said, adding “please,” when he realised how blunt he sounded.

“Ok,” Tom sounded forcibly cheerful, “Well, it was nice to hear from you again.”

Will hung up. The phone found itself chucked unceremoniously onto the floor. The jumper followed soon after. Curling up to sleep was the only thing he did find easy that day.

* * *

 

Ringing woke him. An automatic, floundering hand made for the side table but found nothing. Only as the ringing stopped did Will become compos mentis enough to remember it was coming from the floor.

“Shit,” he muttered, hissing at the cold as he left the warmth of the heavy duvet just as the phone began to ring once more, lighting up the like a firefly on the carpet.

He grabbed it quickly and retreated to the bed, snuggling down into the pillows before answering.

“Hello?”

“Darling,” Hannibal’s voice.

“Where the hell have you been?” ground out in a muffled voice before Will could think about how surly it sounded.

“Apologies,” Hannibal said, undeterred, “I was indisposed at dinner when you called. A frightful affair. Pierce recommended a local restaurant,” Will found himself relaxing as Hannibal spoke, even as he tried to keep his irritation close at hand, “Inedible would be putting it mildly.”

“He took you to dinner _again_?”

“I fear I may have underestimated the thing he apparently has for me.”

“I should have told him to fuck off while I had the chance,” Will said tiredly.

“I could pass on the message,” Hannibal said, amused.

“Feel free,” Will found himself laughing softly.

“So, I ordered room service on my return and have just finished taking a well needed shower, and it is now,” a pause while Hannibal checked, “half past eleven, and I wish I were home with you rather than lying in this sterile room.”

“I thought they booked you the suite?” Will said, even as he smiled at the sentiment; the anxiety was shrivelling like grapes in the sun. _The voice kept him close, enough to ignore the more difficult questions._

“They did,” Hannibal said as explanation.

“Oh. Well,” he cleared his throat, “Is the conference going well?”

“Very well, but that isn’t why you called me.”

“No, I guess it wasn’t.”

“Are you using the weighted duvet I left?”

“Mm hmm.”

“I had hoped you would like it. Is it helping?”

“A little. And I do like it. What time’s your flight on Friday?”

“Ten past eight in the evening.”

“Remind me to tell whoever booked your flights to fuck off as well, will you?”

“Of course.”

“I miss you. Been missing you all day.”

“Do you miss me now?”

“Bits of you,” Will said softly, shivering as his skin prickled at the timbre and quality of Hannibal’s voice, changing subtly.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Are you trying to seduce me, Dr. Lecter?”

“I was not aware I had to.”

A soft exhalation of breath, eyes closing, touch heightening, “You could always try.”

Over the phone, Hannibal’s sibilants took on a slightly slushier quality than usual, mixing with the consonants and vowels to create a flowing glide of language akin to waves upon the shore. Will listened and allowed it to wash across his skin, hairs rising on cue. Hannibal was not one to voice his feelings without recourse, and Will knew that he must understand the need in him, the need to feel close while so far apart.

_Loneliness. Anxiety._

“How would you have the sorely missed parts of myself seduce you, darling?”

An abrupt laugh, “Are we doing the dirty phone call thing now? This is a turn up for the books.”

“You always exposit on your overactive imagination. Perhaps I am simply exploiting it.”

Still smiling, “Hands,” Will admitted, swallowing, “I...like your hands. Like it when you...” he cleared his throat and tried to shy away from the embarrassing vulnerability of voicing his desires, and fall closer to the freedom of speaking them in an empty room, “when you touch me.”

“Where, darling?”

“The-the insides of my thighs.”

“I always hold you when I do,” Hannibal sounded reminiscent, “from behind. Pulled tight against me, to keep you close.”

Imagining was nearly good enough, but pulling the duvet down behind him in a piled up mess and pushing back against it fueled the fantasy. Will could imagine the weight behind him had breath of its own, warm and hard as the long fingered hand slid down between his legs to press against the soft skin of his inner thigh.

“You’re warm,” Will continued, part memory, part desire, “And you kiss at my neck, always when you get your chance.”

“Only when you bare it for me.”

“Only for you,” Will breathed out as his hand slid up, the sensitive skin of his wrist pressing across his half hard cock even as his fingers continued to tease the sensitive skin beneath.

“Of course,” Hannibal said, his voice tuning dark, slickly dangerous, “because you are mine.”

“Yes, always,” just above a whisper, “always.”

“What would you have of me?”

“Your teeth a-against my throat and...and my leg,” Will thought he could feel the tight grip of a hand at his knee, lifting it roughly, “you pull it back, over your waist. You expose me like no other can. You see me.”

“My beautiful darling. That you offer yourself is enough. I would give you pleasure. Tell me how.”

“Inside,” Will insisted, “I want your wonderful hands in me. You always know just where to touch,” his voice hitched as Hannibal interrupted swiftly, three words that went straight to his crotch.

“Caress yourself darling.”

It was impossible to disobey, and the disconnect was electrifying even as it was bizarre. It was his hand reached down, across his chest, his abdomen, past the tuft of curling hair and his eager penis, and yet it was Hannibal’s fingers that entered him. As they slid inside Will thought he could feel his mate’s breath against his face as he pressed his cheek to the phone to catch the words seeping through.

“Always a spectacle, to watch you lose yourself. Bliss leaves you undone, vulnerable to me. I wish to open you like a gift. Touch deep where no other can. Would you give yourself to me, dearest?”

“A little late for that,” Will breathed heavily as the three long fingers rocked inside, drawing jolts of pleasure with every curl, twist and thrust, “you’re everything to me.”

“Will, how you know me. I would have us together for as long as there is breath in us. For as long as my hands can touch you and bring sweet sounds to your lips,” Will slid the fingers deeper, catching a moan in his throat with mixed success, on his back, legs splayed up and over the rolling duvet, “for as long as you would allow me see you unmasked. For as long as you will let me inside.”

“You feel so good,” Will said softly, mindlessly, face hot even as the cool air caught the sweat on his flesh, chilling his skin, “so close.”

“I am sure I have two hands, dear Will.”

“Hannibal...”

“I would have myself take you within and without.”

The phone lay beside him, a lamplight in the dark, as Will wrapped his freed left hand around his weeping cock and bit out a soft, croaky groan, while the other continued down between his legs. An imagined heat spilled from his right side, where the duvet pressed, _where Hannibal’s toned flesh pressed_ , warming him. The warm, smooth metal of his wedding ring slid against the soft skin, making him jolt and shake at the added sensation.

“Such smooth skin,” the voice seemed clandestine as it radiated from the small speaker, “You blush, so fresh and free when I tease my fingers against it,” Will bit down on his bottom lip, the sharp pain keeping him grounded, “Blood rushing, it makes you alive in this moment, even as it is dubbed _la petite mort_ ,” the roughness Hannibal gave to the silky words made him shiver and his breathing quicken, “I would have you die a little for me,” Will felt his world spiral in anticipation of the word, “ _darling._ ”

“I can’t...”

But the words were untrue, for he could, and did. Will rode out the orgasm to the feeling of Hannibal surrounding him, holding him close, touching him inside and out, sweet words against his throat, knowing him so utterly as to be able to touch him over hundreds of miles without so much as a stutter.

When the high slid down, and down, Will realised he was laying in the dark, cold and wet. It was difficult to care. Wiping his hand across the sheets, _he could launder them tomorrow_ , he grabbed the phone and pulled the duvet up and over him, nesting underneath until his head was absorbed down into the puffy mass.

Hannibal’s voice was ineluctably vainglorious, “Well, was it good for you too?”

Closing his eyes and opening them, Will hummed, even as the euphoria of the act gave way to the reality of his situation.

“Can’t wait till you come home and show me the real thing. I’m sure you’d have some adjustments.”

“Nor can I. Experiences with you are always virginal in their opportunities.”

“You know I’m not as innocent as you presume,” Will said, curling further in on himself.

“It is your innocence that I admire for its resilience, even as much of you gives in to the call of your subconscious desires. And I do so enjoy watching you give in.”

“Trying to corrupt me?” Will asked, jokingly.

“I think it’s a little late for that,” Hannibal said with a smiling tone as he parroted Will’s words back at him, “but I accept you.”

“All of me?” the itching anxiety nipped, returning to swamp the tingling contentment.

“Whatever it may be.”

“Even if I can’t have kids?” the words blurted out without the ability to keep them in, and the anxiety flared high and threatening.

“I do believe you alone are more than enough for me, darling,” said without hesitation or placation; a simple, true statement, “even if it were to be this, mere words between us for the rest of our lives, nothing could desecrate what we share.”

“How did I get this fucking lucky?” Will asked hypothetically, his hand rubbing at the light pain in his chest; _everything seemed so fragile, yet made strong by confident words spoken in earnest_.

“I sometimes ask myself the same thing,” came the reciprocation, “sans crude language.”

“Oh of course,” Will said, smiling.

“Of course, darling.”

“God,” Will said, looking at the screen of his phone to see the time, anything to change the subject, “it’s after twelve. Do you have any early seminars?”

“There is a talk at nine on advanced surgical polymers I was tempted to attend.”

“Then you should sleep. I know how you hate mornings,” Will said, feeling his heart tighten at the thought of hanging up, “I’m...I’m sorry I kept you up.”

“Oh? I’m not.”

“Hannibal,” said with affectionate scorn, “you’re a prurient hedonist at heart.”

“Only for your skin, dearest.”

“Get off the phone,” Will laughed, shivering at the memory, “Oh, and pass on my message to Pierce would you? Maybe it’ll discourage him from taking you to any more lousy dinners.”

“An interesting theory. I will test it.”

A pause, where neither spoke and yet nor did they leave. Just steady, soft breathing and the idea, the concept of a presence kept close by the open connection. The ever subtle fear kept at him, skulking in the background even as it had been dismissed by Hannibal’s sure words. _Would you stop him if he left?_ Will hated that the doubt lingered.

“I don’t want you to go just yet,” he admitted after a long pause.

“Then I will be here, until you sleep.”

“You don’t have to...”

“And yet I wish to. Sleep, darling. I will be here.”

The phone lay beside him, beneath the heavy duvet, like a hand reaching out. _They lay together, and for once he could not care enough to chastise himself for the need and the want to feel close to his mate, nor resent himself for his lack of foresight, nor others for their proximity and his distance._ Will felt the touch of the light upon his skin, and knew that the doubt would fade in time. Just as everything did, eventually.

But Hannibal would be there, always, _until he slept_.


	2. Illustration/Action

The quiet hum of the floor buffer, mixed with the staccato beat of a single pair of clicking heels and rolling wheels, had Will covering a yawn. The chair wasn’t comfortable, not by a long shot. It was plastic, organically shaped to appear relaxing but be utterly useless in testing; it bit into his shoulders and slipped away at the small of his back, pushing him to a contorted angle.

Still, even uncomfortable furniture couldn’t stop his eyes from closing, chin drooping to his chest, listening and listening to the breathing drone of the airport at night. _Shouldn’t be long now,_ his optimism perked up. Will wished he could hold onto it. His hands were itching so much he’d had to force himself to stop scratching the back of the left before he broke the skin.

 _So near and yet so far._ Kept apart by bad weather and bureaucracy.

He yawned and finished the lukewarm coffee he’d bought to keep him awake and distracted. A few rows down from him the man sleeping on the chairs, covered by his fleece, snored loudly. The other seats stood like a game of Guess Who? with the heads and shoulders of the four remaining people only just visible above the blue plastic headrests; two business men, a middle aged blonde with a kind face and a teenager plugged into her phone, scrolling with an aimless expression as she constantly pushed her long hair behind her ear. The cleaner with his buffer floated over by the cafe, every now and then pulling on a just visible electronic cigarette and looking at his watch. Will stared at him aimlessly for a while, as if seeing an odd refrain from a dance routine.

The tannoy announcement rang out like asermon _: Good evening passengers, this is a boarding call for flight 2072 to Cleveland. Would all passengers for this flight make their way to gate three. Please have your identification and boarding pass ready for inspection._

Across the mainly empty area some people stood from chairs, seats on bags, emerged from places Will hadn’t even seen, and made their weary way. Looking up at the flight board, Will sighed.

Delays made the world stand still. _And his nerves overwork._

He stood up, but walking only heightened his cavernous surroundings. Still, anything was better than that chair. Or falling asleep in it. After his third circuit and second cup of black coffee, Will looked up at the board to find,

_Chicago - Southwest – 3438 – A3 - Expected 00:45_

Checking the digital clock gave him _00:29_ and his body woke up to the thought, even as his cynicism read _expected_ and refused to believe the hype. _And then there's miles of corridors and waiting for luggage,_ he thought. Still, he made his way from the warm, semi-comfortable, catered Departures, to the dearth of Arrivals. At least they didn’t have uncomfortable chairs to lure the unsuspecting.

It was another fifty minutes until anyone showed. By then Will was leaning against the railing by the ramps leading down to the waiting area, watching the wide entranceway avidly as the weary flight rolled in. Singling Hannibal out from the crowd wasn’t difficult; he was the only one looking as if he’d just dressed that morning, his dark brown suit and blue shirt utterly immaculate, heavy overcoat draped over one arm, bag held with the other.

Eyes searched him out, meeting quickly. _A small smile and a raise of the hand._

Will made his way slowly to the left ramp as Hannibal descended with the other weary travellers, even as his itching hands willed him faster. No words were necessary, all spoken by action alone.

Hannibal put down his bag and hung his coat on the rail, touching Will’s right arm softly: _You did not need to wait for me_.

Will shifted close, closer, until he was pressed against Hannibal’s chest, hands in his pockets, forehead resting down against his shoulder: _I wanted to._

Hannibal’s arms lifted to hold him close, forcing a small smile from Will as he let loose a contented sound; neither did public affection, except in mitigating circumstances: _I missed you, darling_.

Will returned the embrace tightly, curling his fingers into the immaculate suit jacket, pressed his face to Hannibal’s neck and kissed the scented skin above the starched collar: _Next time I’m coming with you._

On pulling back Hannibal lifted his right hand to stifle a yawn, clearing his throat as Will laughed softly.

“Didn’t sleep on the plane?” he asked.

“They refused to turn down the lights,” Hannibal said as he gathered his things and they began the walk to the exit.

“And you’re always so adamant first class is worth the price. Just as useless as economy when it comes down to it.”

“Useless, yes. But for a measly extra fee I will take the extended leg room and not being sardined into my seat.”

“ _Measly_ ,” Will shook his head and didn’t comment further, “did they feed you at least?”

“Yes, though I’m not sure if it was food in the strictest sense.”

“I made chicken chasseur, it’s in the slow cooker.”

“After five days of substandard restaurant fare and airplane meals, I can barely contain myself.”

“Keep your wise cracks to yourself,” Will said with a smile and a sidelong glance as they exited through the sliding doors, “I’m parked up to the right, by the taxis.”

The house seemed warmer on their return, and the quick dinner, even at one fifty in the morning, seemed more filling. _Home seemed like home again._ Will dumped the dishes in the sink and badgered his antsy husband upstairs with a promise of _I’ll do them in the morning_ , to which Hannibal pedantically noted that it was morning, to which Will leaned up to kiss him with what little energy he had left.

“Take me to bed,” he said softly against Hannibal’s lips.

“As you wish,” Hannibal replied softly, eyeing the dishes narrowly as they left the kitchen.

Stripping down was quick and messy for Will, _jeans and shirt and underwear dropped onto the chair by his dresser in a heap,_ and slow and meticulous for Hannibal, _shirt and suit and underclothes folded and stacked in the pile for dry cleaning by the laundry hamper_. Will was already under the covers and half asleep by the time Hannibal joined him, sliding close and gathering Will into his arms.

“Did you turn off the alarm?” Will slurred sleepily against Hannibal’s chest.

“Well remembered,” Hannibal said, leaning back and to the left, letting in the chill; Will curled closer as he listened to Hannibal fiddle with the clock, moaning contentedly as he was once more pulled close.

Nestled together, Will allowed himself to drift. It was as he listened to the soft breathing from above, the pulse of a warm heartbeat beneath his ear and the feel of strong arms against his body that he realised the back of his left hand was sore.

But it no longer itched.

* * *

 

“You can’t even wait till after breakfast?”

“I would have thought that on some level this constituted a meal.”

“You’re fucking incorrigible, you know that? Stop it, come on it’s already half twelve and-for crying out _loud..._ ”

“Your mouth says words your body does not hear. How indecorous.”

“I- _uh_ \- we- _fuck_ \- we need to get up.”

“I thought I was up, as you so delightfully put it.”

Unable to stifle the laugh, Will smiled and shook his head as Hannibal leaned down across him to kiss at his neck. His hair was soft between Will’s fingers, the caress seeming to encourage Hannibal to lean down further and press the length of their bodies tightly together. The laugh turned to a swift inhale.

One hand slipped lazily to his mouth, teeth denting the skin as he bit down. The other curled into the pillow by his side as Hannibal began gently stroking at the slit beneath his eager cock. Will groaned softly into the pillow and splayed his legs without conscious thought, eyes fluttering closed.

“Not exactly what I was going for,” he murmured against his hand, eyes half lidded.

“You cannot hold me to etiquette when I am provoked,” Hannibal rebutted, voice throaty with sleep and arousal, murmuring across Will’s chest as he traced the skin.

“I didn’t know a kiss good morning could be called _provoking_ ,” Will said wryly, left hand going to Hannibal’s nape to run gently over the hairs there; watching Hannibal shiver at the touch made him bite his bottom lip in anticipation.

“Five days is a long time to fast, darling.”

“You look awfully collected, for a starving man.”

“Perhaps I simply have a mask for every occasion.”

“Mmm, I noticed,” Will puffed out a breath as Hannibal subtly shifted from caressing to entering, “ _ah_ your hands are cold.”

“Apologies. Poor circulation. I am sure you will warm me up soon enough.”

Grinning, Will reached up to pull Hannibal close enough to kiss, arms around his shoulders and neck.

“What would you have of me, darling?” asked against his collarbone.

It was pointless to deny himself the need of it, even as it bit at him, “Do I have to pick a part? Or can I take everything?”

“Everything? How demanding. But I do so love a challenge.”

 _Always patient with him, always kind_. Will couldn’t help but appreciate the gentle handling. Hannibal was never demanding. Sometimes it drove him a little mad, but he’d rather that than some other horror stories he’d heard. Of alphas taking what they wanted when they wanted, with no laws to restrict them. Another one of the many, many reasons he’d been adamantly single for so long.

His Hannibal; gentle and patient, yet passionate and intense beneath the shroud. Sometimes they complimented, _both quiet and fastidious by nature with an underlying wit and ability to see where others could not_ , but the contrasts kept things interesting, _cultured to his rustic, urbane to his unrefined, social to his introverted_. Always something new to discover, the exploratory nature of their relationship allowing Will to not feel awkward about his lack of experience.

Trying new things with Hannibal was surprisingly easy, especially considering he didn’t exactly have a frame of reference. Years of suppressants had been on the menu for a reason, and from his formative teenage years until the moment he was desperate enough to come off the Antryphodene over a year ago, that menu had not included sex. To be truthful he’d never even really thought about it much, considering he’d never found anyone worth looking at twice. _Now that he was romantically involved, Will liked to understand himself as having high standards; what others would probably call ‘being very picky’._

Then Hannibal had slipped into his life; _an end to looking but not seeing_. His arrival had signalled coming change, an end to his existence as he’d come to accept it, and the emergence of new choices. The night he had stopped taking the suppressants had been what he considered a last resort, to try and crack the case that couldn’t be solved; the illusive Chesapeake Ripper. That’s what he’d told himself. Only on visiting Lecter’s house that night things had strayed from a need to know to simple, ineluctable understanding; _an end to an era and an end to his obsession._

Then the start of a new one. The rather wild minded and livid night at Lecter’s home during the height of the Olmstead murder had been something he was sure neither had been expecting at the time. _Hannibal had been so gentle with him, Will could only remember the rapture of hands and mouth and his skin singing until his mind shut down_. Only now, as he peeled back the layers of skin one by one, did he think he knew his mate well enough to understand that Hannibal had most certainly been expecting it.

_Hannibal was always expectant of the outcome to his machinations._

Because Hannibal wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met, and was sure he would not again. Soft and demure, yet hard and unyielding when his principles were brought to task. Fiercely intelligent, smugly arrogant, beautifully skilled in whatever he put his hands to, with a mind for somewhat childish humour and wicked words, even as he continually hid his true self within in the shadows.

_Despite the deep connection holding them flush, he knew there was always a piece missing, buried where no one but Hannibal could find it._

Will didn’t mind, there was time to unravel the finer points. In fact he found himself wishing to take his time, long and slow. _Untangling the carefully crafted web of masks was a wonderful puzzle._ He was willing to be in the shadows too if that’s what it took. _He knew parts of himself already resided there, waiting for Hannibal to uncover them._

As they moved together on the bed Will closed his eyes and accepted the kiss. _As close as they came to showing themselves utterly and completely, all costume and intrigue dropped to the floor like discarded clothing._ Will left himself open, inviting. Hannibal slid inside, eyes intent on his, and Will craned his head back and cursed with a smile.

“Too much?” he was asked.

“Not enough,” was his reply.

They made love in the afternoon sunshine. Whispered words caused _faster, harder_ , while gentle touches evoked _slow, smooth,_ and Will enjoyed the bizarrely symbiotic hold they had over each other; _shared dominance_. Will held the reigns, while Hannibal allowed himself to be leashed by them. And of course occasionally yank them from Will’s grip to test their budding limits.

When he eventually opened his eyes Will was sweaty, sated and veritably glowing. Above him Hannibal was watching him closely, as always, before leaning in to kiss at his forehead. Once, twice, on the third he stopped to push his nose into Will’s damp curls and breathe in. Will reached up to run his hands down tempting sides, smiling as Hannibal jerked involuntarily at the feeling.

“Glad you did not hurry us to breakfast now?” Hannibal asked.

“Perhaps.”

“I must admit I do not feel truly flattered by your brevity.”

Will laughed, “Need me to declare that you just fucked me senseless? That’s a little insecure of you.”

“Not at all. I simply like to hear you, as they say, talk dirty.”

Beneath him, Will stretched like a cat, long and leisurely, “That’s not it. You just like compliments.”

“Perhaps,” Hannibal said, mimicking.

“Well you’re just going to have to wait for your flatteries. I have better things to do today than lie here and enthuse about what a fantastic lay you are.”

“Perish the thought,” Hannibal said, eyes dancing with mischief, “what, pray tell, are your plans?”

“I need to buy a pig.”

“A pig.”

“A whole pig.”

“Why settle with half?” the right side of Hannibal’s mouth ticked up in a smile.

“I’m hoping the butchers will accommodate me,” Will covered a yawn.

“I am sure they will,” Hannibal said, running his hand down the length of Will’s abdomen, smearing the thick fluid of their shared release across his hot skin, “This is either a very ambitious meal plan, or something to do with your upcoming study, I assume.”

“Unfortunately I don’t think it’ll be edible after I’m done with it,” Will said, licking his lips and sniffing, craning his neck back to read the wall clock: _five to one_ , “I was thinking I should get there before noon, but so much for that.”

“I’ll come with you. It has been some time since I shopped for a good cut of beef. I have been craving filet mignon ever since I landed in Chicago. Good for you?”

“Sounds delicious,” Will replied, nuzzling Hannibal’s shoulder.

“But first, a shower?”

“A shower,” Will agreed, adding in a wry tone, “and I want to be clean when I come out of it.”

The look on Hannibal's face made no promises.

* * *

 

The moment of eureka bloomed into being at one forty five pm a week later with a thermometer, a blanket and the third pig the butchers had been happy, if not bemused, to supply. At seven hundred dollars a shot (six hundred seventy five for the pig alone, and a rather hilarious twenty five for shipping) Will was running short of patience for wasting funds. So far Hannibal had been shelling out, always with a stern promise from Will of ‘you’ll get it back when the grant comes through’.

He knew Hannibal did not care for the money, but still, Will stuck by his principles. It had never been part of his plan to be a kept pet.

And now, the third pig had unfolded the secret.

“You fucking genius,” Will muttered to himself as he recorded the time and temperature with a scratchy pen, watching the digital readout flicker down another degree, “wrapped her up, didn’t you, wrapped her up to keep her hidden, and look where it got us.”

Walking backwards earned him a trip over a box by the door, swiftly recovered against the wall as Will bundled himself out of his lab - or large shed, which was closer to its reality - at the bottom of the garden. He quick-walked, eyes still glued to his notes. The garden was a familiar enough space that he didn’t have to look; moving around the twin pampas grass, flowering their long alien-like stamens, the flowering bushes and the pear tree by the neighbour’s fence and towards the decking at the back door. Glancing up he saw the door was open, which could only mean Hannibal was in the kitchen.

“I’ve got it,” Will began calling out, looking back to the readings in his hands with excitement, “he was clever, _too_ clever to slip in with the rest of his behaviour _._ She was wrapped in a duvet, or a rug, something tight. Slowed her body temp decrease and, here’s the kicker, made it more difficult for the insects to get in and plant their eggs. That’s why the dermestids weren’t weathered and don’t match up with the rate of decay, and the larval skins...”

Looking up again had his mouth run dry, lips still parted as he stared up at the shape of a person he hadn’t expected. Alana Bloom stood, arms folded to cradle her elbows, a small smile on her painted lips.

“Alana,” he said redundantly.

“Late lunch at two? I said I’d be early? No?” she smiled, “Forgot, didn’t you.”

“I was...working,” he said, putting his pen behind his ear and climbing onto the deck, “you look nice.”

And she did, in her dark blue dress and high brown boots, hair loose. Always easy on the eyes, Alana, even if her eyes weren’t always easy on him. There was a subtle expectation there, as well as judgement, he knew that.

It suddenly seemed a long time since he’d seen her last. For a moment he allowed himself to realise how wrapped up he’d become in his bubble of a world, _safe and secure_ , without even having to consider anything else. A quick calculation spat out: _three months and two weeks – a chance meeting at the Hippodrome during the intermission of Othello_. Will allowed a little guilt to slip in.

Still, Alana didn’t bring it up, nor did she even seem to begrudge him the lack of acknowledgment. Instead she knew him well enough to simply say,

“Very smooth, Graham. So,” she put out her hand and, after a pause, Will handed over the clipboard; Alana looked at it casually, “this is why you’re getting complaints from the neighbours about the smell.”

“He told you about that, did he?” Will said, unimpressed as Hannibal emerged with a tray of drinks to place on the wooden table by the door; Will took his when handed the glass, giving Hannibal a balanced stare, “You know you could have reminded me we were expecting guests.”

“You were working,” Hannibal said as if it were obvious, “besides, lunch is not yet ready,” he turned to Alana and gestured to the shed, “luckily today the wind is South Westerly, so we can sit outside without fear of having our stomach’s turned.”

“It’s not that bad,” Will said wryly, sitting down stiff limbed and awkward; _other people always left him slightly wary these days_ , “anyway, won’t need her for much longer. Just a couple more hours, then you can stop fearing for your reputation in the community.”

“I don’t think Hannibal’s ever worried about that,” Alana said, raising an eyebrow with her smile as she too sat.

“We’re all a little weird,” Hannibal said, tipping his head a little to the left, “those who cannot understand that are not worth my effort to mollify,” from the kitchen a timer sounded with a soft bell, “excuse me for a moment.”

Will watched him go from under his lowered brow, picking at his nails with his other hand. The dirt there made him feel a little out of place; he’d walked from one world at the bottom of the garden, to another at the top. The sound of curling paper caught his ear and he cast a glace over Alana, still ruffling through his notes with one hand, drinking with the other.

“It’s the Rulla murder,” Will explained without prompting, “based on, I mean, not actually _the_ murder, that would be...” he cleared his throat and sniffed, “it was five months ago?” Alana nodded but didn’t say anything, “Well, that’s what it is.”

“You’ve been through three pigs?” Alana said, smiling a little as she caught his eye.

“This is the third.”

“Third time lucky?”

“It wasn’t luck. It was inspiration.”

“You were inspired to wrap a pig in a rug. Do I even want to ask?”

“You think it’ll put you off lunch?” Will joked dryly.

“Do _you_ think it’ll put me off my lunch?” Alana replied.

“It’s nothing like that,” Will shrugged as a leaf floated down onto the table from next door’s oak; he picked it up and twirled it by the stem, “just the new, uh, blanket I got. Weighted, you know? Like you hear about in the dynamics booklets when they do canvassing door to door.”

“Oh, I know,” Alana said, waving it away, “heard enough to put me to sleep from my mom about them.”

“They work,” Will shrugged, “well, I mean while Hannibal’s away, it’s just...” clearing his throat again did nothing to loosen the tension he was slipping into; _the need to justify himself grew like a tight knot in his gut,_ “...easier. Coming off suppressants seems to have made me a bit, uh, twitchy about...things.”

After a short pause Will raised his gaze from the leaf to Alana, finding her watching him closely as she sipped her white wine spritzer, “You’re coming off the suppressants?”

“Yes,” Will said succinctly; _the judgement was there, he knew_ , “we’re trying for, I mean we’ve been trying for a baby.”

He was glad she hadn’t been drinking at the time, because Alana looked a little startled at the news and Will didn’t feel like explaining to Hannibal why their guest was soaked in sparkling alcohol. She licked her lips and put the drink down on the wooden table gently. The sky shone like kyanite, deep and rich blue with a crystalline sheen near the effervescent sun. A day like any other, a day for a breakthroughs, a day for lunch on the patio, a day for status quo.

And now a day for revelations. The next words out of Alana’s mouth made him rue the latter addition to the list.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked without compunction.

“Wow,” Will shook his head and smiled hollowly, “moving right past patting me on the back and straight to pushing me into the lion pit, huh?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said genuinely, looking a little wary, “it’s just...I’m your friend and I don’t want to see you hurt. There, ok? It’s not that I don’t want you to, only...”

“Only you think I’m not stable enough,” Will finished for her.

“Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here. I thought we’d already talked about this.”

“Over a year ago,” Will pointed out, “things are different now.”

“No, they’re not,” Alana said, glancing to the kitchen as she lowered her voice, “Will, just because you’re mated doesn’t decrease the chances of complications after birth. You know that, the doctor you went to knows that,” she paused when Will took a deep breath, eyes skipping between her and the kitchen door, “...does Hannibal know that?”

“That’s not important. I want this, alright? We both want this.”

“Will...” she sounded as serious as he wished she didn’t.

“Can we talk about this another time?” he hurried out.

“You haven’t told him?”

“It’s not written in stone, Alana, don’t pigeon hole me just because of my fucking status.”

“I’m not, it’s just fact, don’t take this personally,” she said, even as Will felt like telling her how redundant it was, “Sixty seven percent of male omegas with previous mental disorders have severe neurological backlash after giving birth, especially traumatic deliveries.”

“It won’t be a fucking trauma.”

“Birth is a trauma, Will.”

“And echopraxia isn’t a serious mental disorder,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, even as he knew his argument was built on sand and Alana’s on stone.

“Yes, it is. It really is. You’ve never seen it, Will, but I have. God, Will, please just...” she stopped as the sound of plates clattered from the kitchen, “promise me you’ll tell him. It’s not fair to pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s just not fair.”

Lunch became a stilted affair. After three bites of his exquisite goat’s cheese, stripped beef and balsamic vinegar tart Will excused himself and walked strictly back down the garden to his lab.

It was difficult to keep an appetite with a stomach full of anger and guilt.

* * *

 

Nightly routines were grounding. Hannibal brushed his teeth over the sink, Will walked around with the brush in his mouth, doing little things. Hannibal followed a strict repertoire of cleanliness and skincare, Will washed his face with warm water and patted it dry. By the time Will got to the bed, it had always been turned down on his side.

Tonight Hannibal sat up against the headboard, tablet on his duvet covered legs. The lamp set the bedroom in a low, soporific glow. Slipping into his white night shirt, Will sat down on the bed, his back to Hannibal.

A pause wide enough to be a noticeable gap in the routine’s usual uninterrupted flow. When it had stretched to its limit, Hannibal broke it with a neutral topic, enough to make Will feel the need to laugh. He simply wasn’t sure yet if it would be with joy or despair.

“Face and voice signals,” he began, “despite the different nature of their physical structure, carry highly similar types of socially relevant information. Both contain linguistic information, but also relevant information on a range of personal biological characteristics, gender, age, size, etc. From this angle the voice can be consider an auditory face, so to speak.”

The sound of moving fabric, then of the tablet placed aside on the table. Will took a deep breath and let it out as he slipped into the bed, pulling the covers over, staying beneath. Heavy with a guilt that was all his own; not for keeping the truth from Hannibal, because he knew Hannibal did not need to be told. The guilt sprang from his need, something he did not always push for, overriding all others. Even logic.

"Interesting reading?"

"A journal article, not my usual fare; psychology. Swapping medicine of the body for that of the mind."

“Something someone recommended from the conference?”

“No, just a personal interest.”

As he lay back, head against the pillow, Will took both hands and rubbed them forcefully over his face, “I told you, when we first met. You won’t like me when I’m psychoanalysed. I thought you’d taken it in fair warning.”

“I do not wish to creep into somewhere I am not wanted. I merely want you to talk to me.”

“About what?”

“About whatever it was Alana said to you earlier, to make you so reluctant.”

At times Will did not feel psychoanalysed by his husband, as much as he felt dissected; a corpse under the coroner’s knife. The event would be dead and gone, now disinterred under watchful eyes. Not that he wished it buried, as such, he knew that it was in both their minds. Only...

“Not so much what Alana said to me,” Will admitted slowly, “as what I haven’t said to you.”

“You are worried.”

“Mmm.”

“Is this about the fertility treatments?”

“It’s about...about what’s going to come after that. You know what might happen. I know you do. You’re too officious not to have read up on the dangers.”

“Of course,” Hannibal said bluntly, forcing Will’s eyes to him; he sat, in his navy blue night clothes, and looked down at him without judgement, “and in return I know that you must know them.”

“Then maybe we’re both culpable.”

“We cannot be culpable for something that has yet to happen.”

“What if I..?”

_...lose my mind._

He couldn’t voice it, because the subject was too close to ruining him. Always had been. It haunted his steps, from his childhood to his working life, _with Jack Crawford making allowances or his colleagues whispering behind their hands_. His dad had hated explaining away his son’s behaviour, having to disclose his disorder on dynamics assessments, or to families of potential suitors. _The little odd duck_. At times like those he’d missed the idea of a mother the most; he’d never known her, so she could be nothing more than an idea to him. A balance, that’s what he’d imagined, a balance to his father’s stern, traditional views. Someone to show him where he came from because, for the life of him, he couldn’t see a single trace of himself in his father’s face, or his gestures, his habits.

Someone to show him that he was normal, simply because he would no longer be the only one.

“Then I will be right here,” Hannibal answered; _his auditory face saying what his own did not_.

And then sometimes, when he was feeling reckless, Will knew Hannibal filled the hole that rolled about his life creating _noticeable gaps_ or _long silences_. That sometimes he let Hannibal be his balance, because there was no one better suited to understanding what that meant. Rolling onto his side, he was met half way with an arm around his shoulders and a kiss to his lips.

“Good,” Will said, keeping his emotions tight even as they strained his voice, “because if you went anywhere else I’d be hunting you down.”

“Sounds tempting,” Hannibal admitted, thumb stroking rhythmically against Will’s upper arm.

“Careful,” Will said, smiling as he curled against Hannibal’s side, arm across his waist, “your inner predator is showing.”

“I am sure I could give you a far more impressive demonstration.”

“I’m sure you could,” Will said as the hands on his body slid beneath the cloth, “and if you try hard enough? You might even see mine.”

“Such a delight, my darling,” Hannibal muttered as he pulled Will atop him, “You are such a delight.”

Perched atop his mate, looking down into twinkling eyes and a subtle smile, Will found his balance.


	3. Coincidental/Intended

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, a very Merry Christmas, Holidays and Happy New Year to you all! I hope you had wonderful times with lots of happiness and chocolate (the chocolate is obligatory). Here's to 2016 being far better than 2015, full of inspiration and joy (and maybe a new series of Hannibal if some lovely network picks it up..? You never know your luck!)

“I don’t have to be there.”

“No,” Hannibal agreed as he emptied the leftovers into the stainless steel bin in the corner, “but that does not mean I would not prefer it if you were.”

Right in the middle of a difficult time, a pair of invitations had arrived. Not difficult because either he or Hannibal were being particularly difficult themselves, but instead because life had decided it could step up to the plate if no one else was going to supply friction.

The first had been Jack Crawford, stirring the pot. Will had always liked the metaphor. He thought it was particularly apt for Jack. Crawford may put on the bravado, but beneath he was cunning enough to know the ingredients he needed to make his recipes work. Jack’s ingredient list was a good team, and Will knew he was nestled in there somewhere. It had been difficult enough leaving the BAU, but to have the BAU actively hunting you was somehow worse.

Will knew that all Jack would positively react to was blatant, blunt refusal. So when Jack had cornered him into a meeting and spent the whole time dancing around the issue, Will hadn’t felt an iota of guilt when he’d said, “Jack, would you mind fucking off with this subtle bullshit? It’s like sitting in the long grass with a snake” to Crawford’s face. It had been a plus to his intuition when Jack had just laughed, his sharp eyes watching Will closely. His adamant rebuttal had left a bad note in the air, and not just with Jack. Truthfully, Will knew that Hannibal had always hidden his disappointment at Will leaving his bolt hole at the FBI. Not that he would ever say so.

He was too polite for something as vulgar as saying it out loud.

And then the second invitation had arrived, and bizarrely it was somehow worse than the first. Will just wished he’d woken earlier that day. Normally he always woke up earlier than Hannibal, but that morning the lure of a few extra hours with his eyes closed had been too much. _Too much worrying, too much focusing on work to ignore worrying, too little sleep._ When he woke and went down for breakfast he had found Hannibal leaning against the range with a cup of hot tea in one hand and a letter in the other which he read in silence. Secreted within ivory stationary, and written with fine ink, had come a summons to the Lecter mansion.

‘ _A charity ball,_ ’ his husband has said in reply to inquiring what had come through the letterbox, ‘ _it seems my aunt has found a new cause to champion. The twenty third of May. We do not have plans for the twenty third, do we darling?_ ’

A question asked while the answer was well and truly known. Will wished Hannibal wouldn’t try to be coy. Even more than that Will wished he’d woken earlier. If he’d been the first to find the letter he could have thrown it in the fire with no remorse and pretended it had never arrived. Now he was partaking in another of those talks that always left a bad taste in his mouth. For a man with no family, something in Will always grated whenever he tried his best to keep them both away from Hannibal’s relations. Sometimes it smacked of a bitter jealousy he wasn’t willing to explore.

“Having to and wishing and wanting,” Will shook his head as he placed the rinsed plates into the dishwasher in a neat row, “I guess that doesn’t matter, really.”

“Meaning?” Hannibal asked.

“Meaning I should stop trying to wrap it in pretty words and courtesy when it comes to your goddamn aunt. I’m not going because I don’t want to go. Ok?”

“I would not force you, of course.”

“No, but I’ll know what you’re thinking,” Will sighed.

“Know what?”

“Don’t bother pretending,” Will said dryly, “I’ll _know_. And then I’ll have to put up with it for weeks; knowing,” Will stood, straightening out his back, and sighed as he rubbed at his face; Hannibal was still watching him, as an ambush predator waits for the prey’s weakness to show, “look, we’re all well aware that this is a bad idea and I am absolutely not going to enjoy it. I can’t. Even if it was fun I wouldn’t allow myself to enjoy it.”

This made Hannibal smile softly as he rinsed the casserole dish in the sink and handed it over. Will took it and shook his head.

“Always the devil’s advocate,” Hannibal said.

“Nope, just my own. Anyway...look,” a tipping point, which he felt as if he tripped over rather than stepped, “I’ll go, alright? I’ll go, just don’t expect it to end in anything but tears.”

“I doubt I could imagine either of you weeping over mutual insults.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

“All metaphors have a basis in fact. But I am glad you will accompany me, it would have been rather awkward alone. Some of my relatives do not believe I have truly settled down. I am hoping to convince them...Will?”

Hannibal stood, still with a small, attractive smile on his lips and a dish in his hands, watching as Will laughed into his cupped right hand. A genuine, full bodied laugh, eyes squinted in pleasure. When he finally managed to stop, rolling his shoulders and grinning, Hannibal raised a brow.

“ _Settled down_ ,” Will said as if it were the single most absurd thing he’d ever heard, voice still hitching with laughter, “tell me another one.”

Lying in bed later that night, he found it hard to relax. He would go, yes he would go, but he knew it was a terrible idea. It would sit on the horizon of the twenty third like a looming vulture, beady eyes ready to feast on the vitriol of shared dislike. Rolling onto his side and fluffing his pillow Will took a deep breath and held it.

Understanding was a rare consolation. Growing up misunderstood, Will had always found it easier to _understand_. Other people couldn’t deny their true natures; it had always been a useful weapon for keeping the unwanted at bay.

Understanding: a simpler avenue with prey than loved ones, and the reason Jack hunted him relentlessly. Unfortunately for Will, Lady Murasaki was most certainly on that side of the line, planted firmly in with those he understood with the most clarity. Cold blood ran between them, slicking the way for mutual animosity and heightened awareness of motivation, as it always did with everyone he met.

Besides Hannibal that was, but he was willing to make one exception to his rule.

* * *

 

The hotel was nice, it was, truly fitting with Hannibal’s ostentatious tastes from the marble columns in the lobby to the gilt door handles on in their suite; even if all it did was underline Will’s stubborn, abrasive feelings. Every step inside the building, every coat hanger used in the sliding door wardrobe, every drink ordered from room service until he gave in and asked for the bottle.

It was nice here, but it was everything that was wrong with their keeping in touch with Hannibal’s aunt and uncle. Will lay back on the pristine sheets and stared at the ceiling, lazily swirling the amber of forgetfulness in its heavy tumbler gripped tightly.

“No place to think about the space in between us, is there?” he asked no one in particular; he rolled his head to the side and took an awkward sip, spilling a little on the bedspread, forcing him to sit up and murmur, “Shit,” as he dabbed at the stain with a heavy napkin from the nightstand.

Hannibal had gone on ahead to help prepare for the do. Will had decided that it would be better if he stayed out of the way of preparations, partly for Hannibal’s benefit and partly for his own. There was no enjoyment in mixing business with pleasure, and Hannibal’s aunt Murasaki was all business where he was concerned. Not the sort of business he was interested in.

Not his interest. That’s where the need to fill his glass had come from. _Would you stop him if he left?_ The old question sprang up at the first sign of weakness, and Will allowed the alcohol to ignore the implications on his behalf.

Dinner alone felt nostalgic. A look back at how things had been before expensive hotel rooms and lavish dinners and trips to Europe on a whim. Will ate in the room with a rented movie on the overly large television: _Some Like it Hot_. It was difficult not to laugh, even if he didn’t feel in the mood to be happy. Or sad. Or anything, really. The false happiness forced on him by humour helped keep everything else at bay; that strange, empty, lost pit in his stomach that he hated for what it was.

His life like it had been before.

Him in his cabin out in Wolftrap, tying intricate knots into fishing flies and fixing boat motors and walking with the stray dogs that followed him out of camaraderie and the hope for food scraps and trying his best to pretend he didn’t care that he was going to be alone for the rest of his life because he couldn’t even begin to understand how to start changing for someone else without ending up resenting himself, or them, or both.

Hannibal, on the other hand...

The room felt empty again and Will sighed. He took a hasty mouthful of rice and pork stroganoff, smiling emptily as Jack Lemmon tore off his wig and declared himself a man.

 _Well, nobody’s perfect_ , came the reply.

Will chewed over his food and swallowed, along with his thoughts. Then he frowned as the words repeated in his head, eyes squinting slightly, then he smiled, then he grinned and let out a hissing laugh. _What the hell am I trying to do to myself?_ he thought. Another mouthful of bourbon had him shaking his head and settling down to choose something else to pass the time on the screen.

Worrying about his life choices could wait until he was forced to believe they needed thorough revising.

* * *

 

Hannibal had sent a car to pick him up, because of course Hannibal had sent a car. _Couldn’t have his partner turning up in a 2004 Volvo flatbed truck with visible rust around the real wheel arches, could he?_ Will thought. Too down home American. What would fit in worse between the Rolls Royces and the Mazeratis? Maybe the old Jeep he’d had before he met Hannibal. Thing guzzled gas and was solid as a rock, even if it would have been the ugly duckling at the party.

Right now, he empathised with the sentiment. Stepping out of the sleek Mercedes made him feel as uncomfortable as the suit he wore; well fitting, tailored and enough to make him itch. He walked with a few other attendees making their way towards the well lit, scalloped stairway which led to the mouth of the mansion.

“Name?” he was asked as he reached the top step, making him blink a little and search for the source.

A suit and tie with a polite smile stared back at him, holding a guest list. Will had to suppress the urge to turn and leave on the spot.

“Will Graham,” he muttered out, scratching at his neck.

“I’m sorry sir,” the suit said in a voice that sounded nothing like it, “but you appear not to be on my list.”

“Christ,” Will shook his head and made to walk inside; when a hand moved up to stop him he jerked back like a horse from an electric fence. Beside them an older couple walked past, eyeing the scene with a mix of upturned noses and inner circle gossip mongering.

“I am unable to permit you without an invitation, sir.”

Hands in his pockets, Will smiled grimly, “You’re making it sound like you wouldn’t be doing me a favour.”

The doorman frowned and made to speak, only to be interrupted.

“I know you.”

Both Will and the suit turned as one to the bright doorway, to find a young girl there dressed in an eye bleeding combination of a turquoise blue satin dress fringed with orange frill, complete with red tights and shoes. In her hands she held a doll, similarly bedecked and with matching blonde hair.

“Excuse me, miss, but this...” the suit began.

“You’re Will Graham,” she said purposefully, “you’re uncle’s friend.”

“Doctor Lecter?” the suit said, as if to himself, swallowing.

“Friend?” Will asked with a small smile and a raised brow.

“Come on,” she said, grabbing his hand without preamble and pulled him inside.

The suit had no protest to offer.

 _Through the looking glass_ , he thought as he passed towered champagne glasses trickling with fizz, ladies bedecked in anachronistic hats standing by men in striped suits and animal faced masks. As they walked by, the main ballroom revealed a woman suspended from the ceiling by golden silken strands, twisting and tumbling in an artful display of obscene wealth. By the stairs there stood a towering stuffed bear on its hind legs, a shotgun placed between its raised paws.

Will wondered if it was worth drinking, or whether the decor alone would suffice.

Thankfully the girl continued to lead him through the absurdity, through the main atrium and around a corner into a long corridor, quieter, removed. The arched ceiling made it seem taller than it truly was, and Will couldn’t remember ever having been down it on his few visits to the estate. It was lined with plinths sporting morose looking busts. When the girl released his hand she trotted over to a particularly gruff looking example, its long beard touching its wooden stand, and sat down on a low bench against the wall.

Will looked around himself in a slow turn, eyes flitting over the cathedral ceiling and the gold plated light fittings.

“I suppose it would be too much to hope that your name is Alice,” he asked without thinking.

“Veronica,” she corrected without hesitation

When Will looked at her she stared back unabashedly; which was the moment he realised he didn’t mind meeting her eye. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and walked over to her, sitting down at the other end of the bench.

“Let me guess,” he said, exhaling, “after a grandmother?”

“On my mother’s side,” she nodded with a slightly sour look, watching him, “he’s not really my uncle, you know.”

“I figured not.”

“I just call him that because he said I could.”

“He can be quirky like that,” Will said, itching to ask more; he didn’t want to push, so instead said, “so how’d you know my name?”

“You work for the FBI, don’t you?”

Through the thick layer of antisocial brusqueness and standoffishness Will always wore to a gathering such as this, he looked at the young girl and smiled. She was charmingly blunt and brusquely truthful. He could see why Hannibal would be taken with her.

“Used to,” he nodded, “how’d you know that?”

“I read about you. The Minnesota Shrike, right? And The Angel maker. It’s five. Five major cases and five convictions.”

“That’s right,” Will didn’t want to seem too taken aback; he guessed she got enough of that already, probably from her parents, “you interested in criminal psychology?”

“Mm hmm. My mom doesn’t like it, but I like knowing about people. Some people are stranger than most.”

“So I’ve found,” Will said, cocking his head, “what with being a little strange myself. But then I’ve always thought that the strange ones tend to be the most interesting.”

Suddenly, from her mainly impassive face, Veronica smiled brightly. Her eyes seemed to grow larger, showing off their watery blue. It was slightly disconcerting, but Will just smiled in return. Without warning, she handed Will the doll she’d been clutching. Taking it felt like entering into some sort of unknown bargain. _Maybe we’re all just strangers, flocking together_ , he thought as he looked down at the doll, noticing it had only one eye.

“Need a new eye for..?” he left it open.

“Hannah. Her name’s Hannah.”

“Hannah, right. Here,” he said, looking down at his uncomfortable, slightly detested, bespoke suit, “have one of mine.”

The button came away in a few swift tugs and twists. He handed it back to Veronica with the doll, pressed together as if to make the two as one. Little Veronica took them with her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” she asked.

“Oh this?” Will pointed to the ruined slips of string hanging from his suit, “It’s fine. I’ll fix it. I’m good with needles.”

“Me too,” she said enthusiastically, smoothing the orange ruffles on her dress, “but mom always gets me in trouble when I sew on my new dresses.”

“I like it,” Will said, looking over her garish garment, “not exactly my colour scheme, but I like it. So, uncle huh? How’d that start?”

“Uncle Hannibal looked after me when I got the measles last year.”

“Measles?” Will frowned in concern, “Haven’t you had the inoculations?” she squinted her eyes and frowned, “Your jabs at school.”

“Uh uh. Mom said they’re poison. But I’d say measles was poison too. Although I’ve never been poisoned, so I guess I wouldn’t know. Still, it was really strange. I had weird dreams. I don’t really remember it much. Have you ever been ill?”

“Once. I had a fever when I was nine. Had weird dreams then too.”

They fell into an awkward silence. Will bit down on the anger he was holding back towards Veronica’s parents. In the background a lively tune perked up, the violins ringing out loudly. Standing up, Will offered her his arm.

“Fancy some champagne?” he asked.

“I’m only twelve,” she said, as if he were mad.

“In France you get it at ten,” Will shrugged.

“Oh, ok,” she agreed, as if that made perfect sense.

He walked her back to reality, and it felt insincere somehow to return to it. They weren’t supposed to be there, Will felt, as if they were intruding. Or perhaps that reality was intruding upon them. He snagged a tall flute of champagne from a passing waiter and emptied half of it out into a tall plant pot sporting a fern.

“Only half, don’t want you getting too hyper.”

“Thank you,” she said, watching the bubbles in her glass as they wandered slowly around the atrium, “but you said you don’t work for the FBI anymore?”

“Nope. I write now. Maybe not anything you’d have read,” Will shrugged, thinking about how sharp the girl was, “but I might be wrong. I write about cases.”

“But if you don’t work there, how do you write about it?”

“You don’t have to work there to get information,” Will said, looking at a long buffet table as they walked through the archway into the ballroom, the music intensifying and the crows thickening; every step was taffeta and silk, mixed with absurdity, “it’s who you know, kid.”

“Oh. Like Hollywood.”

“Yeah,” Will couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at the analogy, “only with more backstabbing.”

“This stuff is weird,” Veronica said, lifting up her glass and wrinkling her nose.

“Most alcohol is,” Will agreed, taking it from her, “adults like to pretend it’s nice.”

“Why?”

“Grown-ups like to lie,” Will said as he scanned the crowd, feeling a familiar itch at his neck, “it makes them feel powerful.”

“Mmm,” Veronica narrowed her eyes again, as if in understanding, “my mum lies.”

“She does?”

“I think she might do it to try and not hurt my feelings. She says she likes things, but then she won’t take them. I made her this,” Veronica put her thumb under a necklace she wore, shining with what seemed to be alternating pieces of hematite and coral, “but she wouldn’t wear it.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, sweetheart,” Will said, “suits you better anyway.”

“Thanks,” once more grinning her disconcerting grin; when the crowd parted before them, Will looked up and found a familiar sight revealed. Veronica tugged at his arm, “Look! There’s uncle!”

It had always been something he’d found easy to dislike about Hannibal when they’d first met, that he was always dressed as an aristocrat, but even then he couldn’t deny the fact that the man looked incredibly fine in any suit he chose to wear. The particular choice for the evening was a dark plum with black velvet lapels, tailored tightly into the small of his back and trimly across his broad shoulders. Will let Veronica go as she trotted up to the group, which Will noted included the ever present Lady Murasaki, dressed in a stunning red ball gown, black satin, elbow length gloves and a polite yet vicious smile. The rest of the guests at the huddle were unknowns, a man and two women who seemed far more fitting to the situation than Will felt.

When Hannibal turned and smiled at Veronica as she patted his arm, Will felt embarrassed at how glad he was to see him. _One night apart_ , Will thought, berating himself, _and it’s enough to make me lonesome. Fucking hell._

“Veronica, my dear, how wonderful to see you,” Hannibal said, looking up as Will approached, “and I see you have brought me an errant gift.”

“Will fixed her for me,” she said with a smile, showing him the doll and the button.

“So I see,” Hannibal said.

“My gift wrap might be a little damaged,” Will shrugged, picking at the abused threads.

“Veronica, don’t harass Doctor Lecter,” the unknown man said as he guided the girl to his side; he was short and saggy cheeked with a pale complexion and matching blonde hair. Her father, Will was sure. The woman at his side, kitted out in a sharp black bob of hair and exaggerated make-up above a corseted green dress must have been the mother, Will thought with distaste. Her and Veronica shared the same watery blue eyes, but it appeared that it was the only thing they did.

Leaning in, Hannibal kissed at his neck in a practiced display of affection, an appropriate greeting for their situation and their company.

“I had thought you may have changed your mind,” Hannibal took the opportunity to murmur by his ear.

“I was just down the rabbit hole,” Will shrugged, enjoying Hannibal’s intrigued glance.

“Oh, but Hannibal!” the mother suddenly spoke up, in a sultry voice Will hadn’t been expecting, “This must be him! So you weren’t pulling the wool over our eyes, Murasaki, it’s true. Dear Doctor Lecter has been completely and utterly caught.”

Lady Murasaki’s polite smile did not waver, but her eyes said otherwise. At the other end of the room, by an ice sculpture of a stag with its antler’s raised, the string quartet began playing _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_. The other woman at their group, dressed in a strapless black and white evening gown and with truly artful coil of golden blonde hair, hid her own reaction behind a sip of red wine before speaking.

“Caught implies there was a chase,” her tone was attractively husky and demure, “can I assume you were the predator Hannibal?”

“Ineluctably,” Hannibal said, cocking his head forwards towards the blonde and lowering his voice, “although now I believe it may be the reverse.”

“Forgive me,” Lady Murasaki spoke up, putting her hand to her chest, “what a terrible host I am. Bedelia, my dear, this is Will Graham. And I must introduce Fiona Charnham and her wonderful husband Charles. Fiona has been treasurer on the chair of the project, truly indispensible.”

“You’re too kind,” Fiona said, touching Murasaki’s arm and smiling.

Will expected that this was some sort of opening for him to politely inquire as to what the fundraiser was for; he was sure that it was noticeable that he stayed utterly silent. Hannibal stayed beguilingly close, yet not touching. Will had to resist the urge to lean a little to the left and press their sides flush.

“Ah, but you must excuse me,” Murasaki said, looking off to the left and waving, “I simply must go and speak to Mr Evansham, he has donated a considerable sum. Do enjoy yourselves.”

Without the subtle glue of the hostess, the awkwardness returned, even if only for a moment. Veronica looked amused by the silence. Will smiled in return.

“So, I understand you work at the FBI, Mr. Graham?” Mr Charnham eventually asked with all the enthusiasm of tired bloodhound.

“Not really,” Will said, taking a drink of the last of the champagne in his glass; even if he detested the stuff, at least it took the edge off, “I’m back in teaching now.”

“Ah,” Charnham said, nodding sagely, “a good position for someone like yourself. Honestly, and don’t take anything from it, I’m amazed they put you in such a position in the first place. Dangerous work, catching murderers.”

“Quite,” Will said, gripping his glass tightly and keeping his eyes on the far wall.

“Someone at the Mayor’s office ought to look into who’s running that department,” Fiona Charnham chipped in her two cents.

“I know, mom,” Veronica said, looking up at her mother who staunchly ignored her, “I know who it is.”

“Someone who purposefully puts omegas in harm’s way is not someone I would trust to run a scrupulous investigation,” Charnham said brusquely.

So far, Will felt he could commend himself on his restraint. Instinctively he leaned away from Hannibal. He could feel the eyes of the blonde, Bedelia, watching him with interest.

“I think you’re really brave,” Veronica spoke up when her mother refused to respond to her, “I’d be scared if I had to shoot someone.”

“It’s not so much scary,” Will said, licking at his bottom lip and blinking, “as much as it is ugly. Killing is always ugly, even when it’s in self defence.”

Veronica looked contemplative as her father butted in.

“Hobbs wasn’t it?” Charnham spoke up, “The one you took care of? Jacob Hobbs. I remember the headlines. Maniac. Killed his wife and daughter. You did the world a service putting that dog down,” he said, raising his glass towards Will before taking a drink.

“Still, it takes a certain type to pull a trigger, doesn’t it?” Fiona said, smiling even as her eyes stayed hard.

“I’m sure they’re the kind of qualities the FBI look for,” Bedelia said, “but you must tell us what you’re working on, Will.”

“I’m sure it’s not a subject for polite conversation,” Will didn’t have the energy to stop the heavy sarcasm on the last two words.

“Certainly not with impressionable minds present,” Charnham said, putting his hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Will said, frowning, “sounds like she already has her own interests.”

“Oh, you mustn’t pay attention to Veronica’s fancies,” Fiona said, with a dismissive laugh, “she’s quite the morbid one. I hope you weren’t encouraging her, Mr Graham.”

“Why not?” Will said, unable to hide the harshness in his tone, “someone has to.”

Another polite but confused laugh from Fiona. Will felt Hannibal’s eyes on him, before they moved on. Will felt like closing his. _Why did I ever say yes to this?_ he asked himself as he felt his restraint buckle under the pressure.

“I can’t imagine what you mean,” Fiona said.

“Just that anyone should have the right to pursue whatever they want in life,” Will stated, trying for neutrality.

“Awfully socialist of you, Graham,” Charnham said, sniffing, “what do you have to say for it, Doctor?”

Smiling demurely, Hannibal answered, “I find it always sensible to agree with my husband.”

 “Like that eh?” Charnham said with a dismissive raise of his brows.

“More egalitarian than I knew you were capable of being, Hannibal,” Bedelia said, keeping her eyes averted as Hannibal looked to her.

“It’s sentiments like that which bring our whole society to the brink,” Fiona said, waving her hand when her husband tried to butt in, “and I’m not being dramatic, Charles. I’m not. It’s just that sometimes people think that...”

“That everyone is created equal?” Will finished for her.

Everyone had fallen suspiciously quiet as they continued to speak. The party swirled on about them, heedless of the building tension.

“If you want to put it bluntly,” she said, “then I suppose you must. It still doesn’t change things.”

“And if your daughter told you she wanted to take up my line of work?” Will asked tightly.

“I would refuse,” she said, looking at him as if he were mad, “you think I would let my daughter...”

 “Follow her own dreams?” Will was vaguely aware that Veronica looked shocked, hugging her doll to her chest and looking at the adults as if seeing strangers.

“How dare you,” Fiona said, letting out a quick puff of breath, “what makes you think you have the right to question how I raise my little girl?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Will finished his champagne and stared at the emerald green strap of Fiona’s dress, face set hard, “the fact that you put her life in danger for the sake of a measles inoculation? The fact that you ignore her at every turn, and probably wouldn’t be able to answer any given simple question about her if I asked?”

“I don’t have to take this from you,” she said, colour appearing on her cheeks, “Charles? For god’s sakes, what’s the matter with you? Say something!”

Out the corner of his eye Will saw Hannibal smile. Normally it would have amused him, but now it felt more like claws against the back of his neck. Will felt a little giddy with the intuition of it all, and yet simultaneously cold with it.

“Look here, Graham...” Charnham began, looking out of his depth.

“I’ll bet you don’t even know how to start taking an interest in anyone but yourself, do you?” Will said as if to himself; when he looked up and met Fiona’s gaze he saw the woman flinch, “What’s the name of the doll?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Fiona said, eyes narrowed.

“The doll, Mrs Charnham, it’s not difficult. Your daughter’s doll. What’s it’s name?”

“This is ridiculous...” she tried to laugh it off, even with a vicious edge.

“The name, please,” Will pushed.

“I don’t know the stupid thing’s name!” she spat, flaring up, “And you are the rudest person I’ve ever met! And how _you_ can stand there and let your mate talk this way has seriously lowered you in my estimations Doctor Lecter,” Fiona said, giving Hannibal a glare.

“He’s not my keeper,” Will said tightly.

“Well maybe he should be!” she hissed, pulling her daughter with her as she turned to leave, before stopping and turning back as if deciding on something, “and it doesn’t surprise me at all that you’re having such trouble conceiving. It’s obvious that some people just aren’t fit to be parents!”

A slap in the face would have been easier to take. As the Charnhams, with a silent Veronica at their side, strutted off into the crowd Will thought about how he’d come to be here. Who for and why. What the point of it was.

Hannibal had insisted he accompany him. _To show me off, that it?_ he wondered. Probably not, if this was something Hannibal knew would happen sooner or later. _Then why?_ He had to ask himself.

He’d been on edge for months now. Ever since leaving the FBI his life had been one big unknown. Not that Will couldn’t deal with unknowns, just that now his unknowns were all overseen by someone else. Hannibal was always present, and Will had only just realised that he’d come to the point where he couldn’t bear the thought of it being otherwise. _Caught_ was what Fiona Charnham had called it. Will wondered, as he turned to Hannibal and handed him his empty champagne glass, if that was exactly what Hannibal thought of him.

“Don’t bother,” Will said darkly when Hannibal made to follow him as he left, “I’m getting a cab.”

“Of course,” Hannibal said without protest.

* * *

 

“Well?”

As Hannibal stood and watched his husband disappear into the crowd, he placed the empty glass he’d been given onto a passing waiter’s plate. When he turned to Bedelia she was swirling her wine thoughtfully.

“He’s delightfully observant. And blunt. Yet also overly righteous, from the sounds of it. Truthfully? He doesn’t seem your type.”

“I think that might say more about how well you know me than how well you know Will.”

“I have only just met him,” she pointed out, “honestly? I’m just glad that you truly appear to love him.”

“Oh?” Hannibal asked, lips quirked.

“Hopefully it’ll stop your aunt trying to force you onto me. Although I don’t hold my breath.”

“We would make a wonderful couple, wouldn’t we,” Hannibal said; Bedelia was utterly spellbinding, and yet her own intentions would never have aligned with his own. She could have been perfect, were she not so fearful of him, despite how she chose to portray herself. Will on the other hand, Hannibal knew, had far more potential.

And, as Bedelia had so bluntly put it, Hannibal loved Will Graham. She just didn’t need to know exactly why that was.

“Hannibal, please stop flirting. It’s indecent.”

“Just stating fact. If you’ll excuse me, Bedelia.”

As he made to leave, he was held back by Bedelia’s parting shot.

“I’d be careful, playing with this one Hannibal,” she said, “something tells me he’s more dangerous than he looks.”

“What a coincidence,” Hannibal smiled, looking at her over his shoulder, “he said the same of me, once.”

“Then he’s a smart man.”

“Would I settle for anything less?”

“Just promise me you won’t get burned by your obsession with him. The fire that burns twice as bright burns half as long. I hate to throw proverbs, but you sound like you need this one.”

“We do not both yet burn,” Hannibal said, half to Bedelia and half to himself, “he is the oxygen to my flame. When we both burn together...that will be the moment the world sees us as we truly are. Still,” he cocked his head, “until then I think it more intriguing just to watch.”

“Always the voyeur,” Bedelia said, with a hint of guilt to her tone, “then I’ll wish you luck.”

The vindication in Bedelia’s words warmed him from the inside out. _She was a good sport_ , he thought, _always such a good sport._ Even when there was a corpse on the floor between them, and blood on her hands.

Hannibal left the party alone, much as he had arrived.

* * *

 

Livid wouldn’t cover it. Will wasn’t livid. Livid was for fiery ire, lashing out and maybe smashing a lamp or two. No, he wasn’t there, not living in that high pitched anger. He thought it worse to be where he was.

Doubt; mired in it. _Doubt_ caused by Fiona Charnham’s words, even if he still held with his assessment of her as a vicious, self centred bitch. _Doubt_ about his conviction to have a child even though he constantly worried that they might turn out just like him, have his problems and his worries and his troubles. _Doubt_ about Hannibal’s intentions and his wants.

 _Doubt._ It made him cruel, and he knew it. Which was why, once Hannibal had arrived at the hotel suite fifteen minutes after he had stayed quiet. They moved around the rooms without catching each other’s eyes, or occupying the same space, or speaking. It felt oddly hollow.

After fifteen minutes of silence, as Will walked through the sitting area with its armchairs and sofa and low, glass coffee table, Hannibal finally spoke up, “You think me cold.”

Will didn’t reply until he’d returned from the bedroom, changed back into his jeans and sweatshirt. He kept his eyes on his task of putting his suit jacket back into its hanger.

“No,” Will answered succinctly and shook his head.

“Then I misjudge why you are angry.”

“It seems like you misjudge more than that,” Will draped the jacket carelessly over the back of the nearby armchair and walked to the windows, looking down over the busy city. Yet he did not look down, as most would. Instead he looked up, to the full white face in the sky. Staring out seemed representative of his feelings, “I’m not angry.”

_I’m just caught._

He didn’t hear Hannibal move, but his voice drew closer as he spoke.

“You play with your thoughts in the moonlight,” Hannibal finally stood beside him, staring out as he did, “how do they look to you, darling?”

“Black,” he said softly, “most things do these days. You know that’s how blood looks? My dad used to take me deer hunting in North Carolina, early; well before the blue dark. I would get it on my hands sometimes, my clothes, carrying back the bucks and the does. It looks black under moonlight.”

They stood together, as spots of rain began to spatter on the glass. Above them, the moon became obscured by cloud, leaving only the faint shadow of light behind.

“You know your aunt likes to talk about our intimate problems behind your back,” Will said, “is family as complicated for you as it is for me?”

“I think family is always complex,” Hannibal said.

“I feel sorry for her, Veronica.”

“She is a charming, intelligent, individual child, stunted by her environment.”

“She’s a butterfly in the glue, trying to fly free. I’d say I’m not angry that someone like Fiona Charnham has no trouble having kids, but I’d be lying. I’d say it wasn’t fair but...no, it’s not fair. Why the hell shouldn’t I say it?”

“Darling...” Hannibal started.

“I’m fine,” Will said quickly, even if it was a blatant lie.

“They say blood is thicker than water,” Hannibal stated, “and yet water stays clear in moonlight. Perhaps blood is more malleable in its consistency,” he looked down and Will felt observed as Hannibal’s eyes landed on him, “I hope you are not changing your mind.”

“What, because some stuck up socialite threw my deepest fears back in my face?” Will shrugged, “No. I just...think it’s something I try my best to avoid. And maybe I shouldn’t avoid it any longer.”

“What darling?”

“That I’m being selfish, having a kid. The margin for error is wide, and I never was a good shot. Still,” Will met Hannibal’s gaze, “I’m not doing it alone, am I.”

“I would hate for you to think I was simply standing by to observe,” Hannibal said purposefully.

“Of course not,” Will said wryly, “you know Hannibal, when it comes to your family I feel shared about, like bits of meat at a buffet table. Do you want to join them?”

“In devouring you? I would have thought that was a privilege I would have alone. Do not hold it against me if I do not wish to share you.”

“At least we have that in common,” Will said, shoving his hands in his pockets, “Bedelia, by the way, she seems nice.”

“Is that a conservative assessment?”

“Yes. She’s afraid of you, isn’t she.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Body language,” Will shrugged, “and the way she watched me. When I stood alone, when I put distance between us, it was as if she was seeing something bizarre.”

“Bedelia has always feared the social web. Being a part of the web means you are always in fear of the spider at its centre.”

Watching Hannibal in the gloom of the lamp, he seemed changed. Unfamiliar and yet also familiar; _familiar_ in his warmth and affection, _unfamiliar_ through the predatory anticipation in his eyes. Will breathed in deeply and tried not to think about the fact that he did not believe Hannibal’s explanation.

 _It would simply be more doubt_.

“It’s true, isn’t it,” he said.

“What is?”

“That you’ll never let me truly know you.”

“I would rather not spoil the fun so early.”

“Sometimes I feel like it would be better if I never figured it out.”

“And then?”

“And then I can’t help myself,” Will shrugged, “It’s one of my worst failings. I always have to know. Hannibal?”

“Yes dearest?”

“I’d rather you didn’t ask me to attend any more parties.”

“Of course, I would not expect you to suffer it again. May I make it up to you?”

Will’s lips twitched.

“Bird in a cage,” he murmured.

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed minutely, but his lips quirked higher. When Will felt a hand at his arm, he looked down to find long fingers trailing his shoulder.

“I would not have you fear me too, darling.”

“Not afraid of you Hannibal. I’m afraid of being _caught_. I told you once that I didn't want to be trapped, and I was promised an open door policy. Tell me, is it what you want? To cage me?”

“Can we not share the cage?”

Will laughed and shook his head before swallowing.

“If I had to share a cage with anyone, I wouldn’t do it with anyone else but you.”

“Perhaps the most romantic sentiment I have ever been offered,” Hannibal smiled genuinely, “but then sentiments are only offered when one reflects in sorrow. Do you miss it Will? Your life before?”

“I still have my life,” Will said, “it’s just...different now. I can’t say I’m not happy, if that’s what you want to hear.”

“I do,” Hannibal said, touching his neck with his fingertips; Will’s eyes fluttered closed on instinct, before blinking back open.

“Then we’ll leave it here, where it should be left.”

“And what you wished to know about me?”

“Left too.”

“You will not ask?”

“I’ll never ask,” Will smiled darkly, “because that would spoil the fun.”

Hannibal leaned in to kiss him suddenly, pulling their body’s flush and gripping him with a force nearly enough to bruise. When they parted, they were still as one, clasped and joined. Will ran his fingertips across Hannibal’s right cheek, to feel the skin and the blood beneath, the heat that only appeared when they were close, near, _together._

“You know Will? You worry too much. You’d be so much more comfortable if you relaxed with yourself.”

“You’d like that,” Will murmured, their breath mingling, “wouldn’t you.”

“Should I ask?”

“Only if you want to spoil the fun early.”

* * *

 

It was five days later before Will finally picked up the phone. Not that it had taken five days to build up the courage, but instead it had been five days of trying to stop himself from doing what he was now doing.

It rang seven times before being answered by a house maid. By the time the person he’d called for was put onto the phone, Will was leaning against the wall in their hallway at home, the sound of Hannibal’s harpsichord drifting down the stairway with spritzy staccato.

“If I asked you to stop it here, would you?” Will said before she had spoken, “Only I thought it might be worth a shot.”

“Truthfully I am simply glad that your conduct at my gathering has cemented my assessment of you as an uncouth, crude young man with none of the qualities needed to be a suitable mate for my nephew,” Murasaki said stonily, “Although I am sure you are happy that I shall not be inviting you back.”

“He’s angry with you, you know,” Will rejoined, “he might not seem it, but he is. So rude, to spread rumours.”

“It is not a rumour if it is true. If you cannot bear him a child, how long do you think your sham of a marriage shall last?”

“Longer than your affair did,” Will said bluntly.

Silence. Will savoured it for the truth it brought. The truth he’d always suspected, but never known how to voice. _The love Hannibal and Murasaki had once shared, many years ago, and now he had stolen it_. It only accounted for a fraction of her hatred for him, but at least it made sense of it.

“You try and riddle him with guilt, for being with me,” Will said, curling the phone cord around into his fist, “trying so desperately to find him a false little wife that he can resent and ignore, so that you’re the only one he has left to turn to. It’s the shaky foundation to the love you’re trying to keep. You just don’t get it, do you? Hannibal enjoys being coveted, and he covets what he wishes.”

The silence continued. He could imagine Murasaki staring straight ahead, _perhaps dark eyes cold but struck by truth_. _People would move around them like spectres. Or perhaps they would be the spectres, standing at the grave side. Will wasn’t sure which way round the looking glass faced half the time._

“And you feel as if telling everyone about my problems will mask your own. Is that why he’s so precious to you? When exactly did the doctor tell you that you’d never have children?”

The silence shouted a history of regret. Will knew it, because for him the history was the present. Only they could understand, even in their mutual dislike. Will knew he would find it, the moment of truth between them that would always be there, _a connection deeper than a knife could strike_.

“I was never caught, Murasaki. Just found. And as for Hannibal he’s no one’s fool, least of all yours,” Will said; as he made to hang up the phone Murasaki spoke, calm and composed but with an underlying anger that Will could hear like distant rushing water.

“Perhaps you are the fool, Mr Graham.”

Will couldn’t help but frown softly, fingers still tangled in the wire. There was a genuine triumph to her tone that put him on edge, but also a sadness that he could not explain. _Anger, resentment, disdain_ , those he was used to. Her statement, though barbed, verged on concern, and that was something not so easily dismissed.

“Maybe,” he said eventually, “or perhaps we both are. I suppose I’ll just have to find that out for myself. Don’t bother mailing any more invitations, they’ll go straight on the fire.”

With that he placed the phone in the receiver. The harpsichord was silent. Will knew Hannibal was listening. He walked up the stairs gently, running his hand along the banister as he climbed. When he reached the top the sitting room door was blocked. Hannibal observed him with a subtle triumph.

“I do believe Bedelia was correct,” Hannibal said.

“What?” Will asked, allowing Hannibal to take his hand and kiss it softly.

“You’re more dangerous than you look,” Hannibal smiled.


	4. Rejection/Assimilation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What is this, Jack?” Will asked tightly, scratching his head, “Target practice? Are you doing this to, what? See how long this can go on for before I get nasty?”
> 
> “You mean you haven’t been nasty up till now?” Jack joked with a raised brow.
> 
> “Oh, that was nothing,” Will smiled wryly

 

It all happened in an odd moment of weakness.

Will wasn’t sure if he was feeling pressured to blame it on something else other than the truth. The bad start to his day perhaps: _he had stubbed his toe coming out of the shower, and later spilled coffee all over his hand when he tripped over a bag he’d left lying next to his chair._ Or maybe that his luck had continued as such: _by lunch, realising he’d forgotten to take his tablets and, only then, realising he couldn’t find them anywhere. He’d felt itchy with worry, ending up having to call into the local Dynamics centre for an emergency dose, then to the GP for a new prescription._

Everything mundane, everything everyday. Even when Hannibal called at four thirty: ‘I am sorry darling, a few more things I must clean up before I make my way home. I shall be late.’

Just another hidden resentment, in amongst the trivial things.

But he knew what was wrong. He knew what was always wrong because, these days, it was the little centre to his universe, churning and burning away in the background while everything flew around in its gravitational pull: _the new fertility treatment, which he’d been on for nearly two months, had yet to bear fruit. Instead all he felt was a constant stream of frustration, anger, aching pains in his back, sporadic, unfounded paranoia and the most lucid dreams he’d ever experienced._

Yet he already knew that his obsession was solely focussed. It was that day Will realised that having a child was focused tightly at the centre of his life, but not necessarily at Hannibal’s.

He wouldn’t say Hannibal was acting overtly different, just...somewhat secluded. Oh they talked, sure, they slept in the same bed, they ate the same meals when they were together. But his mate seemed removed from the proceedings, as if he always had his mind on something else.

Even their sex life had become dull and routine, only doing so when it was at a peak time for Will to ovulate and heighten the chances of conception. All the spontaneity had dimmed from their attraction, and even the overblown and manipulative schemes Hannibal employed to seduce him had fallen by the wayside.

He had asked a couple of times if everything was going well at work, and Hannibal had said that he was settling into the new position nicely. No rough patch, no having to deal with troublesome colleagues. There were no upcoming reviews. There was no trouble with the neighbours. There was nothing Will could see that would make Hannibal so constantly distracted and disinterested.

Except, of course, the one thing he hadn’t considered: himself. The fact that Will had been solely focused on this one thing for nine months now, perhaps to the detriment of everything else _._ The rabid hormones wouldn’t allow him to concentrate, which might have been why his academic research and writing had been so chaotic and uncollected recently. He couldn’t entirely blame them, but having his paper rejected by the _Journal of Forensic Sciences_ had only rubbed salt into what was becoming a festering wound.

A couple of times over the past week Will had fallen low enough to even entertain the thought that Hannibal might have met someone else. Be having an affair. In those moments the fear of it being true was so cloying and constrictive that he was forced to stop before the scenario built any further in his mind. It was inconceivable, and yet he’d thought of it so it couldn’t be _entirely_ inconceivable.

So the trip he’d taken to the store for groceries became a messy affair, the kind that included buying a single malt on impulse and wondering, as he stood with the bottle of amber spirits in his hand, what the hell he was doing; it had been a long time since he’d bought spirits. Hannibal wasn’t there to question him. It was an odd feeling, to even think it; why would he filter his impulses through thoughts of Hannibal’s approval? He’d rather not consider the ramifications.

By the time he’d pulled up outside his empty house, three heavy plastic bags in his hands and keys held between his lips, it had only fit with his luck so far that the fattest of the bags ripped open silently and sprayed its contents bumping and rolling over the pavement.

“Mother _hucker_ ,” Will mumbled around his keys as he stood still, eyes closed, and took a deep breath.

“You need a hand with that?”

Eyes starting open, Will couldn’t help but jerk around to find Jack Crawford, dressed in a grey summer jacket and brown slacks, standing beside Hannibal’s begonia bush. Then Will noticed his car, parked around the corner, almost completely hidden from view. For what seemed a significant few moments, they simply looked at each other. _A minute of surrealism passing_.

Eventually, when Will knew the awkwardness was getting gritty, he sniffed and nodded. Putting down the other two bags, he dropped his keys into his hand and watched as Jack hunkered down to grab a couple of wayward grapefruits that had rolled into the flowerbed.

“I shouldn’t shop when I’m angry,” Will finally said as he grabbed a spare bag from his truck and held it open for Jack to drop in the items clustered in his arms.

“Oh yeah?”

“I always overfill the bags.”

“You spared the vitals,” Jack said, nodding to the flopped open carrier bag with the neck of the whiskey bottle poking out, “that an import?”

“Islay single malt,” Will said, unable to sound enthusiastic.

“Must have cost you a nickel or two,” Jack said as he dropped in the last of the things.

“Come in and I’ll pour you a glass.”

“Not only an invitation,” Jack said with a narrow eyed smile, “but an invitation with a twist? I must’ve done something right.”

“Maybe I need the company,” Will shrugged, avoiding Jack’s sharp glance, “would you carry this? I’ll get the others.”

The July sun was enough to warm the high ceilinged sitting room, blazing against the back wall in a glorious blanket of golden-orange. The soft mauve and oak of the furniture turned to a ripe plum in the light, while it gave the damask curtains the look of shimmering water. Will walked about in his bare feet because he liked the smooth feel of the floorboards, and Jack sat down in the large armchair which Hannibal favoured, his arms stretched out over the armrests and a distinct look of _getting-away-with-it_ on his face.

When Will gave him a heavy crystal tumbler Jack held it up for Will to pour.

“Ah, that’ll do,” Jack said as Will tried to give him a double.

“Suit yourself,” Will said, giving himself a generous helping before unfolding down onto the sofa and taking a large sip.

It was an odd juxtaposition, he always thought, between the drinks he’d used to enjoy and the ones he did now. He’d been a bourbon man, until he’d met Hannibal. Now, even though he’d expected himself to go for home comforts, he’d automatically gone for the overtly expensive alternative which, to be truthful, he did prefer.

_The peaty perfume burned as it permeated his mouth and nostrils, roaring down his throat to stoke the fire in his gut._

Lots of things had changed. Will bit at the inside of his mouth and tried not to think about it.

 “So,” he said when Jack seemed content to settle in and wait for the conversation to begin, “this must be about Claythorne.”

Jack took an appreciative sip before licking the taste from his lips, “Can’t a friend just stop by and share a drink?” he asked.

“Is that a trick question?”

“Will...”

“You’re still on the clock,” Will observed; Jack hesitated and Will rolled his eyes, “you didn’t take a double, and you’re armed. Unless you were hoping to get into a shoot out with the neighbours in forty three, I think you might be here on business. You think just because I’m not on the team anymore that I don’t watch the news?”

“So you watch the news and you heard about Richard Claythorne’s arrest for killing his wife. Trying to impress me?”

“What is this, Jack?” Will asked tightly, scratching his head, “Target practice? Are you doing this to, what? See how long this can go on for before I get nasty?”

“You mean you haven’t been nasty up till now?” Jack joked with a raised brow.

“Oh, that was nothing,” Will smiled wryly, eyes fixed on the clock on the mantelpiece about the fireplace, “now, you’ve got about...half an hour before Hannibal gets home and passive-aggressive’s you out of the house.”

“We’re cutting to the chase? That’s a new tactic.”

“I’m all new these days,” Will said, watching his whiskey as he swirled the glass.

“Well, you already know why I’m here.”

“And you already know what I’m going to say,” Will said absently, feeling a sudden weight of loss on his shoulders.

For a moment there was nothing but quiet between them. It wasn’t the usual kind, the ones where Will had stood at the crime scene, mind ticking over, while Jack had watched and waited for the results. Or even those after they had solved a case and were simply standing in the quiet together, enjoying the serenity that came with success. It was odd, Will thought, that Jack had become a stranger in his life. He’d been his boss first, sure, but he’d been his friend second; and now he hadn’t seen him for five months and all they could do was sit awkwardly in the same room, avoiding the issue.

Will felt suddenly and unbearably alone. He swallowed the feeling down with a swig of alcohol.

“Do you want to come back later for dinner?” Will asked hollowly, “Hannibal’s cooking clay-baked pork. He always likes to show off with it.”

“Will...” Jack sounded frustrated, and disappointed, “this isn’t just about you or me. You know that. You’ve always known that. I’m not here to flatter your damn ego by begging.”

“You know me better than that,” Will said tightly.

“I thought I did.”

Will stayed quiet, because he didn’t want to even start thinking about what _that_ was supposed to mean. Jack continued.

“I need an insight into this one, or an innocent man might go to jail for a very, very long time. I need someone to tell me what happened inside that house.”

“And that’s _exactly_ where I don’t want to be.”

“Didn’t bother you before.”

“How the hell would you know?” Will asked seriously.

Jack sat back with a sigh and looked down into his glass, staring at it as if it were a third guest, “I could have sworn you invited me in.”

“Lucky for you I was so damn accommodating, considering you were loitering outside my house like someone you would normally get a restraining order against. Is that your new tactic? I might have to get an electric fence installed.”

“I know this matters to you, Will.”

“No, you know this matters to _you_ ,” Will corrected, but Jack didn’t stop.

“And I know,” Jack looked Will straight in the eye, “that when you  read in the papers about Richard Claythorne being sent down for life that it’ll be in there, somewhere. You won’t mention it but I know you. You’ll feel it.”

“Drink your whiskey, Jack.”

“Not as fast as you’re drinking yours,” Jack observed.

Will saw Jack flick his eyes to the clock and felt vindicated that at least the threat of Hannibal’s arrival was a constant weight on Crawford’s visit.

“It’s been one of those days,” Will said without really saying anything.

“Enough to have you drinking in the middle of the day?”

“Yes,” Will didn’t elaborate because he knew Crawford might play the brash, arrogant alpha, but he was sharp as a tac; Will didn’t feel like talking about his problems just so Crawford could use them to manipulate him.

“I heard you were putting in another article for the _JoFS_ ,” Jack tried, sitting forwards to cradle his glass, elbows on his knees, “you heard back?”

“If you’re trying to dig for good news to put me in a better mood,” Will said as he finished his drink in a hefty, powerful swig, “you might want to pick another topic.”

“Ok. Alana told me you’re trying for a kid.”

Will gripped his glass tightly and ground his teeth, grimacing as Jack managed to touch the one raw nerve sitting exposed, “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“Christ, you’re not any good for house calls today are you? She was just being a friend talking to friend.”

“Alana likes to tell things to people she thinks might do her dirty work for her.”

“I’m not here to talk you out of it,” Jack raised his hand, “already had the lecture from Alana. I won’t be that guy.”

“Then why the hell’d you bring it up?” Will asked, frowning as his mind worked overtime, then opening his eyes a little wider when he realised, “Aw hell. _Jesus_ Jack, is this because Claythorne has kids? Are you serious?”

“Just look at the files, that’s all I’m asking,” Jack said steadily.

“Lots of people have kids, you think I empathise with every sad sack I bump into in the street because they do and I don’t? Huh? I’m sorry Jack,” he said coldly, standing to put the empty tumbler on the glass coffee table with a very final _clink_ , “I can’t help you with this one. Ask Alana, she seems more than willing to talk.”

“I don’t need Alana Bloom on this one, I need _you_ ,” Jack said seriously.

“Well that’s just your bad luck. I think you should go before you cause me any more trouble,” Will jerked his head at the clock. He hated that he felt he needed to use Hannibal as a threat, _and remembered the days he was able to throw Jack out of his own house under his own impetus,_ “last thing I need right now is that.”

It felt like moving through dead air. Jack looked particularly solemn as Will took his empty glass and led him back down the stairs to the atrium. _The grand life he’d been given on a silver plate by Hannibal’s loving hands, enough to sometimes make him pine for the simplicity of his run down porch and the smell of motor oil in the carpet in his workshop and walking through the forest at night with nothing but stray paws for company._

Beneath everything, the everyday problems and the new and the awful and the needy and the domestic, _Will wanted his purpose back_. Because without it he was afraid that he’d be left hollow and empty were Hannibal to stop loving him. Having it rubbed in his face by Jack that he was resisting coming back to work was just another way to keep the pain fresh.

Just as he began closing the front door Jack turned, standing with one foot up on the steps, the high Summer sun making him squint.

“She made me promise, you know.”

“...Who?” Will couldn’t help but ask, jaw clenched, fingers tight on the door.

“Hillary Claythorne. She’s seven years old, and she asked me to help her father come home because she misses him.”

“For fuck’s sakes, Jack...”

“I don’t think he did this, Will. It’s just that the evidence is proving me wrong, and I don’t like when my intuition is proven wrong. I know you hated that too, but then you were always able to show just why you were right in the first place.”

Will had nothing to say to that. All that he knew was that he wasn’t closing the door in Jack Crawford’s face.

“We have until next Tuesday. That’s the court date that’ll put it all to bed. You have anything you want to say to me? You call before then.”

Watching Jack leave was like watching his conscience turn its back on him. Will sighed and the odd moment started; a familiar, almost bestial urge for _the hunt._ The want to know again how it felt to make a difference. It was a strange moment, while his fingers itched and his mouth turned dry, his heartbeat tripped over itself and he opened his mouth to let two words fall which he knew he would later hate himself for.

“Jack, wait.”

* * *

 

“Something is bothering you.”

“Really? First I’ve heard about it.”

“Darling, I would rather not...”

“Then how about you don’t?” Will interrupted him, before walking out of the kitchen with a glass of water in his hand, “I’ll be in the lab. Don’t disturb me, I’m working.”

It might be prudent to say that Hannibal Lecter was not so far removed from the realities of normal relationships as to think that arguments did not happen. He and Will argued often, normally about trivial matters, sometimes about deeper problems. More often than not Will became more animated the longer the altercation continued, while Hannibal generally became more and more removed and cold as it went on. They were always resolved, always dealt with, and life went on as normal after the disagreement had forced a dip in the road.

But this was different. This was not an argument, this was _dismissal_. Will had been curt and to the point, not rash and angry. Hannibal, standing beside the freezer as he carefully placed the greaseproof paper packets of meat into the drawers, allowed his brow to furrow with curiosity.

Will was keeping something from him. The chill from the freezer was cut short as he closed the door and stood, brushing his fingers together to warm them as he smiled disarmingly. He could only think one thing as his smile sharpened: _how delightful_.

Since their marriage Will had been so drastically open with him that Hannibal had begun to believe him incapable of deception where they were concerned. There had been a terrible lopsidedness to it. Not that Hannibal would ever consider feeling guilty about his secrets. The lies he told Will were not dishonest so much as they were necessary evils; his darling was not yet ready to understand. One day there would be a reckoning, but it would need delicacy and preparation.

They had time. And during that time, Hannibal would prefer to ferret out the problem for himself rather than simply ask for an explanation of Will’s behaviour. His mate was being wonderfully short with him, not his usual practical self, or even his usual hormonal tetchiness or brooding silence. The treatment he was currently on, being funded by Hannibal’s considerable new income that came with his promotion to Head of the surgical unit at St James, had been thoroughly messing with Will’s system. Hannibal was more than aware of that. Yet this was different.

As Hannibal walked through the house, cup of dark coffee in one hand and suspicion in his eyes, he caught sight of it. In the sitting room, on the small serving table beside the resin replica of the _Winged Victory of Samothrace_ , sat the wide based, crystal decanter his second cousin had gifted him on his wedding day. Hannibal walked closer, placing his mug down upon a coaster on the coffee table. Lifting the crystal bauble on top allowed him to pull in the scent of whiskey, _a single malt if he wasn’t mistaken_ , and note something further.

Two glasses missing. Normally there were three, arranged neatly next to the decanter. Only one remained. Hannibal looked around the room, eyes quick and bright. There was a flowery scent in the air. Walking to the sofa he thought he caught the vague hint of Will, still clinging to the leather; _his mate’s scent had been effusive as of late, what with the hormone treatment._

Nothing else seemed out of place. Very odd. After another look around Hannibal sniffed, finishing his coffee before sinking down into his usual armchair to think.

Which was when it hit him. Beneath the flowery scent was another, familiar smell. Hannibal turned his head minutely towards the back of the chair, his nostrils flaring as he pulled in the air. _The flowery scent a decent cover for the heady musk lingering beneath, a rival scent in his own home hiding like a stowaway._

The rush of territorial anger was enjoyable only to resist. Hannibal had always loved suppressing his biological urges. They were so petty, and yet so viciously powerful; the feeling built and built within him until he knew there was a flush of heat at his neck. His tongue poked out to wet his lips as he let his head fall back against the chair and the feeling passed, leaving a heavy glow in its wake. Something akin to coming down from a high, or resisting the release of orgasm.

On opening his eyes Hannibal saw the ceiling, and the fresco around the main light, lit by the heady orange of the dying sunlight. He took another long breath in and smiled at the thought of his darling, down in his lab at the bottom of the garden, swamped in secrets.

* * *

 

And, inside, the gifts spilled out.

A red belly, open.

Emptiness inside? No, not emptiness: a little bundle of memories.

Memories passed on through genetic code, winding and twisting through cells, multiplying, and building. A hand, blobs of fingers curled, an eye growing steadily with the opportunity to see. A small bundle of ready life cut short.

In his lab at the bottom of the garden, Will Graham pinned the enlarged crime scene photographs to his white board in a semblance of order. Together they built a bigger picture, one he wasn’t entirely happy to see, and yet...

...and yet there was a pull there, or maybe a push. He felt it as if at his back, a pressure, urging him forwards every time he considered packing up the files Crawford had given him and dumping them back at Quantico. The pressure would intensify and he would feel the _itch_ and he would want to know more. Will always wanted to know more, when the push took him. Also it was something he could use to focus on instead of worrying about Hannibal.

One female, dead, found tied to her double bed by the wrists, abdomen opened crudely with an unknown weapon (probably a hunting knife Zeller had posited in his report) and her unborn foetus removed. In his hand the paper print out of the report became a grounding focus, something concrete in the here and now.

[ _Maybe Hannibal had met someone at work, another surgeon perhaps. Someone of his own status, his own social class. Good looking and well connected. Someone who could give him everything he needed and be more than just a momentary distraction._ ]

Richard Claythorne, 41, reportedly came home at 19:30 after having had a fight with his omega spouse, Jennifer Claythrone, earlier that evening. He had been drinking and was over the legal limit. When he returned he found her mutilated and murdered in their bedroom in the quiet, rural suburb of Cockeysville; much in the same fashion as two other women in the past year and a half – a Stephanie Waller, 22 year old college student, and Helen Greer, 35 year old librarian. Claythorne called the police and then proceeded to contaminate the crime scene by trying to make his wife’s corpse less undignified.

[ _Or worse, maybe it was someone Hannibal knew. What about that woman, Bedelia de Maurier wasn’t it? Weren’t they good friends? Murasaki had apparently been pushing them together for years, hoping Hannibal would propose to her. Hannibal did seem fond of her after all. Maybe he was meeting with her, having dinner with her, fucking her, preparing to make a life somewhere else._ ]

Will flipped a few pages ahead, fingers tight on the paper: their other daughter, Hillary, was staying with Jennifer’s sister for the night with her cousins. Mr Claythorne also had no alibi, other than he said he’d gone up to Oregon Ridge park to sit up the trail and drink for a while before heading home – only the rangers station could confirm seeing his car on entry, but no one could remember seeing it leave.

[ _Or perhaps the worst of all – Hannibal was simply tired of him. There was no other omega luring him away. Hannibal was bored of putting up with Will Graham and his neuroses, and he wanted him out of his life, once and for all._ ]

Will stood back and looked at the collage of red mess and white sheets on his wall, grinding his teeth. Focusing on the pictures made for a good distraction in a bad way.

 _Where’s your proof?_ he asked himself, _You know how this works. No conclusion without grounded evidence. No verdict without truth._

[ _Hannibal with his hands on another, looking at them with that tender affection which Will had only ever found levelled at himself._ ]

He felt sick. Closing his eyes only made it worse, because then he could see it clearly, all around. He forced himself to concentrate on the case. The pendulum swung, and the room built itself up like Lego bricks, one at a time into place...

 _Down into the one place he knew he shouldn’t be_. You’re strong enough for this, he reassured himself, don’t back out now.

When he finally returned to the house a few hours later Hannibal was absorbed in his study, typing furiously on his laptop. _Just ask him_ , he tried to convince himself, _just ask him and put this all to rest._

Tired and drained, with a head full of murder and despair, Will went up to bed and was asleep before Hannibal joined him.

* * *

 

It was a few nights later that he knew it had all slid too far. Just as he was able to phase back into his work, so did he also move back into the mindset: drenched in the mind of another ( _a killer, a murderer, a father, a husband_ ) in order to ignore his own jagged thoughts. Things were terse, and yet it only appeared to make Hannibal more reclusive.

For three days now Will had been thinking of nothing but the Claythorne case, pouring over the evidence tirelessly down in his lab, contacting Katz and Zeller for updates they were happy if not cautious about giving to him. Looking, no _staring_ at the photographs until, with Jack’s help, he’d even visited the crime scene while Hannibal was at work. That had been an experience. _Just like riding a bike_ ; the blood seemed fresh behind his eyelids, and the ripe body opened like a twisted fruit, split and gored. _His own hands red and dripping_. God, he’d missed this _._ And yet at the same time, he detested it. The duplicity was draining, and warping. Will knew he felt displaced.

He’d done his best to avoid Hannibal altogether. Keeping it a secret hadn’t even been part of the original plan, it just ended up...happening. And once Will had gotten away with it for a couple of days he just felt it wasn’t worth the trouble to stop. Things would work out. They always did.

And then things had gone wrong. Will should have known better than to believe his own bullshit.

He’d fallen asleep. In his chair, in the study, he had drifted off while staring out at the garden. A storm had blown in that afternoon, and was in full swing by the time early evening had arrived. Gale force winds up to ninety five miles an hour made the glass shake when it gusted. The trees moved like water, washing back and forth, silver and green maelstroms. The sky rushed past, dark grey and teal, violet and umber. It made the world seem unstable.

The chaos had lulled him, and behind his eyes the dark things in their cages lurked. They smiled from behind the bars. _Welcome home, Will Graham,_ slipped from lolling tongues. Opening the lock and letting the door swing free seemed anathema, and yet...and yet there the room played out its tune.

The blood pooled deepest at the centre of the mattress, bulbous and dark like an ink blot.

 _Did you want me to take that life into my hands?_ Will asked. The empty room seemed to draw in around him, clawing pitch, filled with howling. _Betrayer and usurper, the mother and the child both._

_We loved you, darling._

_Stupid whore, think I’m a moron? Think I’ll keep the child that mocks me, a cuckold in your womb like a festering tumor!_

_You loved us both,_ the cry returned, a woman’s voice, _and then you stole it away._

Behind him. Will froze but could not move. It was behind him, he knew it was. _Run, run, run_. Only he couldn’t. Could barely move at all. Turning was painfully slow, like moving through thick syrup, a strange buzzing sensation against his skin. His heart was pounding and his wanted to breathe, to _breathe_ , but it hurt so badly and he was frightened to...

“You see, Will,” Garrett Jacob Hobbs stood there, milky eyed and blue lipped, gushing blood from the holes in his chest as he grinned through red stained teeth, “you see.”

He didn’t really remember much after that. He was running, that he recalled. Only he wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not. _Hide_ , that was all he wanted was to _hide_. Couldn’t let the claws find him because...

The walk in closet in the main bedroom was closest and it slid closed with a satisfying snap. When he fumbled with the light Will realised how badly he was shaking. _Click_ , dark. He crumpled down into a ball on the soft carpet and shook.

“Don’t make me look,” he pleaded with no one, his words nothing but muttered whispers as he pushed his hands over his ears and tried to block out the voice, “don’t make me see.”

Hours might have passed. He wouldn’t have known. All he could feel was the heat of his skin, and all he could hear was the beat of his heart, thrumming like a maternal rhythm. Yet the voice continued: _you see, little boy, look at you curled like you're crying in your mama’s lap. Sweet connections, dontcha, have ‘em tangled up in your brain. Tugged by all the bad men when they walk across your web._

It took a while to realise there was another sound. A voice that came from outside of his skull. And hands, there were hands on him. One gently shaking, while the other pushed fingers through his hair. After a couple of minutes the hands managed to coax his own away from his ears. Will could hear his breathing was low and shallow.

“Darling,” he heard, the steady timber and the calm tone soothing his raw nerves, “can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he was whispering when he could, “yes.”

“I’m going to help you sit up. Relax for me?”

He did not fight, because to do so would be pointless. Hannibal sat him up against the wall of the cupboard, then, once he had him where he needed him, he picked him up and carried Will to the bed. _All that time he kept his eyes shut._ Somehow, he wasn’t sure how, he managed to grab hold of a retreating hand.

“I am right here,” the words were said from somewhere above, and then closer, by his ear, “right here. Would you open your eyes for me?”

It wasn’t dark, but the blue gloom was obvious; _sun through storm clouds_. Will thought the chaos must still be thick outside. Looking up from where he held the wrist, Hannibal sat there by his side. His hair had fallen down over his right eye, and the crimson of his sweater seemed deep and rich. His mouth quirked up when Will found maroon eyes.

“There you are.”

“They’re still here,” Will said, trying not to see the grinning lips, split and ruined between the gap into the cupboard door.

“You have been looking inwards. I am sure you thought I could not see it. Yet you are a wonderful mirror, darling. Tell me what you see.”

“They’ll always be there,” Will murmured, “Can’t be without myself, can I? Would I have opened her up and pulled it out? Deserved it, they both did. I would, if it were you. If you’d done it, I would have coated my hands to make it right.”

There was a shine to Hannibal’s eyes that Will couldn’t take his eyes from.

“I think I remember it sometimes, like it’s real. Like it’s something I saw once. You and me, split and trapped. If you’d ever done it Hannibal, I would have,” Will knew he was making little sense, _but the very thought of Hannibal touching someone else made him lose all ability to think straight, “_ No. _No_ , I don’t know. Hannibal, I just want it to stop, for a little while. Please. For a little while, I just don’t want to understand.”

A soft touch against his brow, steady fingers against his cheek, “It is difficult, sometimes, to see past the inside,” the sound of ruffled material, then the click of a lock or a box lid snicking open, “perhaps a little alteration is necessary. I have often thought that a wider view is preferable to a narrow tunnel. Open your mouth for me.”

Two small, white pills. Will watched as Hannibal placed them onto his tongue. They were a little dusty but utterly flavourless. When he looked up he could see Hannibal swallow two of his own. In the back of his brain, somewhere, he wondered if this was wise, considering. It was only then he remembered he had no idea what he’d taken.

“You could be poisoning me right now and I wouldn’t even know it,” Will said quietly as Hannibal sat down next to him.

“I’ll have you know I made them myself, and I’m a wonderful chemist,” Hannibal said as he guided Will to him; Will slipped his head into Hannibal’s lap and enjoyed the warmth and the scent of his mate.

“I meant on purpose,” Will said, his head swimming; he closed his eyes, “That’s what people do when they want rid of their spouses, right? He should have poisoned her. It wouldn’t have scarred as badly; her or him. Maybe that made it worse, seeing the little one in the flesh. I don’t know. He killed her though. He killed all of them, all those women, I know he did.”

No reply. It was then that Will remembered he was supposed to be keeping that a secret. _Oh_ , he thought, _well, it was bound to come out sooner or later._ There were no secrets in love and war; sometimes he felt that they might be one and the same.

“Jack was here, a few days ago,” Will admitted, opening his eyes once more.

“I know.”

Will blinked at him, then smiled and shook his head, “Of course you do.”

“I take it this has to do with the Claythornes.”

“Did I tell you that?” Will asked, frowning; he felt a little light headed, coupled with the strange sensation that his voice was deeper somehow. His limbs felt soft and pliable, and his shoulders relaxed down until Will felt as comfortable as a cat.

“I watch the news, and I can’t think of any other reason Jack Crawford would be inviting himself into our sitting room.”

“We were friends, you know,” Will said abruptly, “we were friends when we worked together.”

“Jack Crawford is not your friend, Will,” Hannibal replied seriously.

Hannibal’s voice seemed like it might be at an odd pitch too, smooth and elongated, “What an odd thing to say,” Will said softly as he pushed carefully up the bed and curled around Hannibal’s side.

Outside, the tree branch nearest to the window smacked against it with a ruffling hiss. Will jumped and laughed loudly. There was a splash of colour to every sound of the rain cracking against the window, or the leaves rustling to get in. Will let himself fall back against Hannibal’s strong chest and had to press the back of his hand against his mouth to stop from giggling. The skin felt tickly against his lips. He had the distinct feeling that there might be music playing but he couldn’t quite hear it.

“I think I might be hallucinating,” Will said, voice laced with humour and amazement.

“I should hope so.”

“What did we take?”

“Gammahydroxybutrate.”

“GHB?” Will let the laugh out because there was no point to keeping it in, “Why do you know how to make this?”

“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”

“I suppose not,” lifting his hands up Will stared at them; he couldn’t tell if they were stained red or if it was just the ceiling light shining against his skin, “he killed her, you know.”

“Who, darling?”

“Claythorne. He killed his wife. Jack’s adamant he didn’t but he’s wrong. I...think I might need to speak to him, just to make sure.”

“Jack?”

“Claythorne.”

“Will,” Hannibal said, pulling Will’s blurry gaze to him, “you do not need this to make your life whole.”

“I know,” he shook his head, laughing even though he couldn’t remember what was supposed to be funny, “No, what am I saying? I don’t know at all. Can’t have kids, can’t write academic papers for shit, can’t even keep you interested in me. What the hell else am I good for but this?”

And it was an odd thing. A very odd thing. At first he didn’t even notice it, perhaps because the sounds of the room were enhanced and almost effluvious, making his senses blurred and fuzzy. But it was unmistakable. When Will rolled his head to the right, Hannibal lay next to him, laughing.

It wasn’t as if he’d never seen his husband laugh, just not like this _._ His eyes were closed and his mouth was open, his chest shaking with the exuberance of the act. The laugh seemed to have taken over his body, manipulating it until Hannibal curled his hands around his torso as if to hold himself in place. It was difficult not to join in. Soon the room was bouncing with sounds of joy.

Will found himself gasping for air, rolled onto his side as he wiped tears from his eyes.

“What a-are we...” Will choked, coughing, “what’re we laughing at?”

“Will, my dearest,” Hannibal had managed to get himself under control, the remnants of his outburst making his speech fitfully jerky, “the very idea that I would no longer be interested in you is enough to make the most stoic show their humour,” rolling onto his side to face him and pull him awkwardly into his arms, “I do so love you, my darling.”

“Right back at you,” Will said, feeling a little stunned by the sincerity and openness of Hannibal’s words.

The kiss was soft and sweet. Will leaned into it. Every place their skin touched seemed to sing in harmony. Will thought he could hear the music again, louder now but still indiscernible.

“So you’re not having an affair?” Will asked without thought.

“That is what has been troubling you?” Hannibal asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

“Wouldn’t it have been troubling you, if you were me?”

“I doubt we would have survived it,” Hannibal said, briefly pursing his lips as he sniffed, “the very thought. I could not conceive of another’s hands upon you.”

“Hah!” Will let the sound out in a puff, curling deeper into the embrace, “I know exactly what you mean. But you’ve been so distant. I thought maybe you were, I don’t know...”

“The truth from your lips, it pierces,” Hannibal murmured into Will’s ear, “You did not know, therefore I was already exempt from this imagined infidelity. _Inconceivable_ , yes? My behaviour has merely been to give you the space I thought you would appreciate. I know that when my biology takes hold, I would rather be left alone than smothered.”

That it all made perfect sense was only more damning. Fuelled by his paranoia, he had allowed himself to believe his own fantastical scenarios rather than the truth. That Hannibal was a wonderful, loving husband, just as he would be a loving, wonderful father. They would be happy together, if Will could only learn to accept what he was.

Hannibal already had.

“Fuck me,” Will muttered, muffled into Hannibal’s shirt.

“Is that an exclamation or a request?”

“Neither. I just thought it fit my mood. Hannibal?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“You need never thank me darling. I shall always be here when you need me.”

There should have been a finality to those words, spoken with the surety with which Hannibal said everything else. Will kept his eyes closed to hide the fact that he couldn't fully take solace within them.

* * *

 

It hadn’t been difficult, mainly because everyone in the offices knew him well by sight, and Hannibal always made a good impression on those he met. Hannibal had appreciated it more now than he ever had before, because knowing Janet Hannah at reception, and Robert Halam on security, and Alicia Conner and her partner Joe Baker from Major Fraud, allowed him simple and yet disgustingly easy access to the fifth floor at Quantico.

He had been signed in and given a visitor’s pass by Janet, and then Rob the security guard had escorted him all the way to the Fifth floor while telling him some inane story about his engagement to some omega from Wisconsin with jet black hair and a tattoo on her thigh, _Lecter had politely offered congratulations_. Then they had run into Alicia and Joe, who were more than happy to see him, take him the rest of the way to the BAU offices, and prove quite useful in validating his original theory.

“Yeah, Jack said he’d been waiting to hear from Will,” Joe said, his almost bald head shining in the fluorescent light, the ring of grey hair from ear to ear seeming superfluous to his trim image, “and I can understand why Will doesn’t want to come himself. Never did seem entirely happy here.”

“Joe, for Chrissakes,” Alicia shook her head as they walked onto the busy office floor, “Graham was never that bad. Guy’s as tough as old boots. Don’t listen to him, Dr. Lecter.”

“Not at all,” Hannibal answered, unable to keep the low-level smile off of his face.

Such a wonderfully mischievous feeling, being here amidst the FBI’s finest and being able to walk around as a free man while they smiled and shook his hand and offered him counsel. He would call them fools, but that wasn’t entirely fair. They were as mannequins, imitations waiting for the end to come from a bullet or a tumour or old age, once their lives had lived out their usefulness. It made him smile a little to himself that he had once seen Will in the same fashion, before he had realised his mistake. Before Will had become the most real thing in his life.

These people here, Hannibal couldn’t help but pity them, just a little, although he was in too good a mood to waste his time with banal thoughts of others. He took a seat in the hard chair across from Crawford’s office door and waited.

By the time Jack arrived, Hannibal was half way through silently appreciating the _adagio_ of Bach’s violin sonata in G minor, _sitting in the memory of the first time he had heard it played, in the courtyard at his aunt and uncle’s estate in France for their small gathering of eight, with the warm air making the sweat bead between his shoulder blades and the sheer beauty of the violin virtuoso frowning as he played savagely and Hannibal, only just sixteen as he was, thought it may be a beautiful enough piece to have playing while he slit open the fiend he had trussed up in their third barn, the one no one ever went near and was always locked, the fiend Hannibal had tracked to a small holding near their summer house and waited until nightfall to catch as he stumbled home drunk from the local pub, the violin’s peaking and falling notes reminding him of the the man's squeals as he had tightened the rope around his ankles, and then falling silent as he had leaned in, breathing five words into the man’s ear that caused him to shiver and stop struggling altogether._

_‘Mischa Lecter sends her regards.’_

Opening his eyes was akin to waking up. The violin had fallen silent and Hannibal regarded Jack Crawford as he felt he may have looked at Hannes Kutzke all those years ago while the man’s eyes rolled back in his head and Hannibal began his work as carefully as he had seen the local butcher do to the pigs when they were brought in from the slaughter.

“Hannibal,” Jack said stoutly, “what a pleasant surprise.”

“Now Jack,” Hannibal said, standing and shaking hands amiably, “I thought we’d known each other long enough not to accept blatant untruths.”

“Did Will send you?” Jack asked, ignoring Hannibal’s words.

“May we talk inside?”

“Sure,” Jack sighed, holding the door open for Hannibal, “look, if this is about...”

“You know what this is about,” Hannibal interrupted, taking a seat without being asked; he allowed Jack the chance to sit down before continuing, “This is a strange role reversal, is it not?”

“I don’t follow,” Jack said, stalling.

“Me asking you to stay away from Will Graham,” Hannibal smiled, “as opposed to those fond days in which you used to request the same of me.”

“I only had Will’s best interests at heart,” Jack justified, already becoming defensive, “your interaction was affecting his work. You knew that then.”

“And I still do. Only now, it is the work you have forced upon him that is affecting his life. But then it always has, hasn’t it? Which you know better than most,” Hannibal continued on, even as Jack opened his mouth to speak, “you know the consequences of what you are doing to him, and yet you flaunt them. Does that make you cruel, Jack? Or simply foolish?”

“I’m really pretty busy, Dr. Lecter,” Jack said with forced politeness, his flat smile not reaching his eyes, “if there’s nothing else?”

Inclining his head, Hannibal stood, but when Jack rose to open the door for him Hannibal merely walked to the table at the other side of the room and poured himself a glass of water from the jug there.

“You know, I’ve always thought you badly underestimated him,” Hannibal said, “Will, that is. A fragile little tea-cup, isn’t that how you described him once? If dropped, he might smash, and no one would ever be able to put the pieces back together again.”

“And you think you can?” Jack asked seriously, closing the door, anger clear in his features; it was never easy for an alpha when another invaded their domain and took control. Something Hannibal knew all too well.

“Oh, you misunderstand,” Hannibal said as he turned to Jack, taking a drink, “I intend never to drop him.”

“Christ, is there a point you’re getting to any time soon?”

“Oh, you would prefer the direct approach. I see. Well, then I shall simply tell you this,” Hannibal put down his drink and walked forwards until he and Jack were face to face, merely a foot between them, “Will Graham is more than capable of handling himself, but he is weak in the face of your forced morality and currently in no mental state to survive what you would happily put him through. It is something I do not appreciate. If you ever attempt to manipulate him into anything such as this again, I shall not be held responsible for the consequences.”

“And I will?” Jack said darkly.

“Most certainly,” Hannibal said casually before he walked around Jack and opened the door, “Oh, and just in case you were wondering, Claythorne is guilty. Good day, Agent Crawford.”

There was a purposeful silence as Hannibal sorted his coat in the doorway, and when Jack Crawford said “Good day, Dr. Lecter”, Hannibal thought he heard that same tone.

 _The tone of someone that knew their eyes were looking at a man, but their intuition was able to see something sinister resting just beneath the skin_.

Hannibal smiled in return. He would allow for the leniency of Crawford furiously disliking him, maybe even suspecting him, because Hannibal knew, as he always had, that he and Will were divine in comparison to the lowly livestock that surrounded them on a day to day basis. He had little to fear from Jack Crawford other than rebuke.

Hannibal knew he was too careful to be caught. The shadow of his beautiful family demanded discretion, and he wasn’t one to disappoint.

* * *

 

‘I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies’  
_Oscar Wilde_


	5. Experiment/Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What’s life without chance? Striped bass, there’s lots of it where I’m going. Sometimes get some rock bass too. You liked it last time I brought it home.”
> 
> “I do enjoy something that had to struggle at the end of a line on my plate. I would not say no.”
> 
> “Carnivore,” Will labelled Hannibal with a smile

 

When he awoke he knew it was too early. He had always been a late riser, partly to savour the hedonistic qualities of sleeping through the morning sun as it tried desperately to wake him; mainly because he preferred the night to think.

And play. These days the dark was a welcome blanket of secrecy.

Will, on the other hand, awoke when the birds were still singing. He assumed it was a left over from living with a father who liked to fish while the fish were just stirring. Hannibal wouldn’t go as far as to call him a morning person because Will was in no way personable in the mornings. He was awake, yes, but not yet ready to face people. Hannibal found himself an exception to this rule, but the postman, parcel couriers, electrical engineers or any workman and, on occasion, neighbours did not find themselves as lucky. It was one of his most enjoyable pastimes, overhearing Will’s stoic silence broken only by icy monotones while the visitor slowly realised their mistake.

They had begun the day apart and ended it together nearly every day for one year and one month exactly. Which was why, when he woke on that particular morning, it was a surprise to find himself lying against a warm body. Not only that but when his bleary eyes blinked into focus he found the blue readout on Will’s tacky, cheap, but -under-no-circumstances-was-he-throwing-away alarm clock read 9:22.

 _I must have moved in the night_ , was his first thought. He distinctly remembered falling asleep on his back, hands resting comfortably upon his abdomen. Now he was on his side, moulded to the outline of chest and jutting hip. Hannibal sniffed and stretched, savouring the tensing and pressure in his limbs, held until released in relief. Lifting his right arm he curled it over Will and held him close, placing his head comfortably onto his chest and then opening his mouth to say,

“It is not...”

“Shh,” he was interrupted softly, “look.”

Blinking, Hannibal watched as Will’s left hand lifted and pointed slowly and carefully at the picture frame on his nightstand. It was still empty, had been for a few days now. Previously it had contained a picture of their wedding day, both standing upon the grand steps of the Basilica of the Assumption, Will handsome in his dark grey tailored suit, smiling brightly to hide his dislike for pomp and ceremony. He’d been looking for something to replace it with, something newer, less staid. And now...

Now something else had decided to paint them a picture. A spider, fat bodied with grey and black striped legs and a wonderfully patterned opisthosoma, was spinning a web. She had already laid out the thick spokes and was about half way through joining up the uniform spiral wheels, industriously working to complete her creation. For a silent few moments he simply watched her, enjoying the rhythmic and meticulous way she grabbed the silk with her hind leg and tapped it in place to weave her masterpiece. It was somewhat soothing. He ran his hand gently over Will’s chest and down to his hip, taking a long breath and letting it out gently so as not to rough the air.

“How long have you been awake?” Hannibal asked.

“Uhm,” Will paused as he pushed his head up the pillow to check the clock, “nearly an hour? I think it’s been about an hour.”

His limbs woke as his mind did, his body stirring as his senses mapped out the room, _warm, almost too warm, filled with dulled sunlight through the curtains,_ and the lithe form pressed against him, soft skin, relaxed muscles and boundless enthusiasm, “So delicately patterned,” he observed casually.

“She’s a labyrinth orbweaver. Must have come in with me from the garden. There’s lots out there in the laurel at the bottom past the lab.”

“She will be happy posing in the picture frame?”

“Think so. It must be the draught, from the window to the door. I feel it sometimes in the morning if the weather’s bad. She must think there’s a chance it’ll be a fly highway. Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“Certainly.”

The air was filled with the sound of silent sharing. Hannibal listened to the dull thump of a heartbeat and tried to discern if it was Will’s beneath his ear, or his own pumping through his veins. Sometimes he found it difficult to tell. Two pairs of eyes watched the spider weave; Hannibal liked to think both minds saw the same beauty within. _Closer and closer the wicked rhythm drew._

It had been a month since their anniversary. _A year in the company of another._ And it had been a month since they had both been forced to face the worst of each other; Will finally opening up to him about his intimate ordeal with the infamous Hobbs, and Hannibal...

Unlike other things, it was an evil upon which he did not wish his thoughts to linger. _Struggling hands fighting him, panted breath and a voice, urgent and openly shocked, begging him to stop._ The taste of the memory was unsavoury, seen as it was through a red haze of consumption; Hannibal was never proud when he felt hijacked by his hind brain.

Yet the swiftness with which the madness itself had come was matched only by the swiftness with which it was discarded. Will had forgiven him and it had not been brought up again, yet...the unpleasant feeling it left in his gut was difficult to flush away. To a certain extent he did not feel it was something that was deserving of forgiveness; rather a sin to be carried. The very thought that he could be controlled by something as base as his biological need. To force his unconscious desires so brutally, so savagely, with no thought whatsoever.

It was tasteless. He wanted his love to always be something he would never think twice about devouring.

The bruises had only just faded but they left a dull shade to Will’s pale wrists, if one knew what to look for. Thus it lingered, just like that shadow. Sometimes when he set his hand upon Will’s shoulder unannounced his mate would tense, even though Hannibal knew Will was well aware of who was touching him.

It lingered.

It was something he was not used to, having to continue living in close quarters with someone whom he had wronged. Normally by this point he would have left, to observe from afar; or they would have met a far more magnificent end as a display for his avid bloodhounds at Quantico; or be a feast for the worms.

And perhaps a feast for others.

The enigma was that he allowed it. There were times he questioned himself on what he had been thinking when he took on this bizarre coexistence with another. With one who could not only make him feel such shame but also endure it.

Sometimes he even surprised himself by becoming angry at the thought of his brutality, of forcing his darling. Or at times it made him quiet and subdued. He knew it would fade in time but was still amazed when the feeling struck him and he knew it for what it truly was; _guilt_. It had been such a long time since he had sincerely experienced the feeling that it made him almost nostalgic.

And yet he felt it was not something to be learnt from, rather something to be utilised. Trying to learn from it would be an exercise in futility, as Will had already ceased his hormone therapy which, as far as Hannibal could tell, was the main reason for his symptoms of a blind, aggressive need to procreate. Instead he felt it was more...a pro forma of sorts, leading to a further understanding.

_Pulling the connection tighter._

There was an intimacy hidden within their ability to cope with trauma that reflected the synchronicity of their blossoming relationship. Will was nothing if not a survivor, and in surviving one must adapt. For if there was one thing constant about his William it was that he never shied away from the distasteful and the macabre. When Will found a dark place he did not turn on the light as others would; instead he slunk down inside the gloom and opened all eight greedy little eyes.

That hunger, that _need to know,_ had reappeared in the last place he’d expected it to. In the bedroom his husband had found his footing in the provocation he found necessary to cope, and seemed to be interested in understanding how and why their serene life had been bloodied from its source. Their unfortunate encounter before their anniversary seemed to have spurred this sudden urge to test. Will was nothing if not a scientist who based his world in logic while his mind floated in possibility. Hannibal too felt that he had been tainted by this systematic approach and had begun documenting his own findings.

So far he had concluded that: _Will enjoyed handing over his control to another person only if they too were in control_.

Recently they had begun experimenting with dominance. It was a prickly and yet seductive topic. There was no pain involved, for Hannibal disliked the idea that control could only come through fear of harm. Instead they tended to take the psychological approach, for Hannibal preferred the idea that one could be manipulated through a web so intricate that the person stuck inside could barely see the threads; and from what he had seen, he thought, so did his darling. So far it was the most intense and provocative game they had played since they had met and, as far as Hannibal was concerned, that was saying something.

Will had even thought of a charming safe word: palindrome. Hannibal liked to think that the equilibrium of their distaste and their acceptance was encapsulated within it. Sometimes he liked to think the word encapsulated them too.

_A beautiful symmetry that became the snake eating its own tail._

“Engrossed,” he eventually said, snapping the spell and returning to the real world.

“Mmm?”

“You are,” Hannibal said as he gestured to the spider with a lazy forefinger.

“A little,” Will sniffed, pausing, “Every day. She’ll do it every day. Spinning like some old woman in a fairytale. She’s already laid the trap lines, see them going up to the right hand corner? She’ll sit there and wait for something to hit. They’re as good as blind, orb weavers. Or maybe short sighted is better,” Will sniffed, “She has to wait for her prey to struggle. Then she’ll run down and wrap them up. In case it’s something dangerous, you know? Like a wasp.”

“A planner then?”

“She’s precautionary, not just reactionary. But then that’s millions of years of evolution for you.”

“You admire her.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Arachnophobia is common, but I would say the simple dislike of spiders is even more so. Liking spiders? You are certainly in the minority.”

There was a slight smile in his voice when Will said, “Oh, so you’ve finally noticed have you?”

“That you are utterly singular? Since I laid eyes on you.”

“Good answer.”

“But for this specific fascination you have with the eight legged, I think perhaps it is more, how should I put it? Common ground.”

Will had begun to absently run the fingers of his right hand through Hannibal’s hair, making the man sigh contentedly and relax further against warm skin. It was not often he allowed himself the luxury of comfort for comfort’s sake. Will was perhaps one of the few he could stand to deliver it.

“Maybe once,” Will replied.

“Trying to convince me that a change of profession changes the man?”

“It’s too early in the morning for this conversation,” Will rolled his head back to centre and looked up at the ceiling, drawing in a long breath through his nose, “I’m surprised you’re in the mood.”

“All time is relative to its content. In another perhaps I wouldn’t have the enthusiasm.”

“Or is that _with_ another?”

“Perhaps.”

“Hannibal,” Will puffed a short laugh and rolled his eyes, “you’re as bad as Jack sometimes, you know that? Worse even. It would be nice to have a simple conversation some time. One with yes or no answers in it.”

“So I am not allowed to compare you but you are allowed to compare me? How selfish of you darling.”

“You called me a spider. I would be offended, you know, if I didn’t like spiders.”

“But you do like spiders.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed with suspicious levity, “I suppose you’ve got a point. I won’t argue with you.”

“One must be a hunter to catch a hunter. Ah! See how regular it is,” Hannibal observed the ever diminishing spiral, “No line thicker or thinner than the last, all spaced with such strict regularity. A genetic understanding, it seems. Knowing how to work the catch without ever being taught.”

A silence as delicate as the pattern upon the spider’s body crept into the room. The fingers in his hair continued softly. Will did not reply, though Hannibal could feel neither aggression nor anxiety from his mate. Will felt...cautious. Dare he say it, expectant.

Hannibal had not brought up Hobbs directly since Will’s confession a month prior. Instead it had become part of the game, and Hannibal refused to be overt when playing the game. Hobbs was an ace up his sleeve, and he didn’t want to reveal his ammunition without covering it in silk first. Smooth and strong and inescapable.

In the end Hannibal, still laying upon the bed, decided to give Will another full minute, counted on the ugly, tacky digital clock, but nothing was forthcoming. He sniffed and decided to bide his time, pushing up onto his forearm to look down at the mess of trimmed hair against the pillow and alert, grey eyes watching him kindly from above a smile and below a frown. At that moment Hannibal’s stomach rumbled.

“Smooth sweetheart, real smooth,” Will murmured as Hannibal leaned down to kiss him; it was slow and involved. The act itself was rather mundane but Hannibal always enjoyed the subtle battle for dominance that Will seemed to instigate without thought. When they broke apart Will’s eyes were closed but his lips were smiling, “anyone ever told you that you’re a great kisser?”

And just like that the conversation was truly closed. Will liked to use the trivial to shut down unwanted trains of thought. _Yet all still remained unfinished, perhaps more so than before_. How did his darling put it? _The cages of his mind were open_. Hannibal smiled and let his imagination run wild with the concept while Will trailed his fingers absently across his back. He would dig deeper, later perhaps.

“Not to my knowledge,” Hannibal finally replied.

“Well, now you know,” Will glanced at the spider even as he spoke, “so are you going back to sleep?”

“Morning appears to have me in its clutches. Perhaps I shall draw. The sight of beauty always evokes a need for creation. They used to make paintings, did you know? Cobweb paintings, using collected spider silk as a canvas.”

“Who the heck has time for that?” Will muttered, frowning as if he thought the cobweb would always be more beautiful than anything that could be painted upon it.

“I do believe monks of the Austrian Alps.”

“Monks, figures,” Will sighed, then covered a yawn, “nothing better to do with their time. Except make wine. And probably drink it in the cloisters when no one was looking.”

“How wonderfully blasphemous. I do hope it is true.”

“So, we’re both up, it’s late...

“Only for some,” Hannibal muttered.

“...and I’m starving. Eggs Benedict?”

“Do we have smoked salmon?”

“Got it a couple of days ago at the deli. And chives, from the garden. That plant’s growing out of control.”

Hannibal spared his right hand to reach out and cup a roughly stubbled cheek, stroking downwards to create a smooth glide against the hairs. Will smirked and stretched, eyes crinkling in pleasure.

“Don’t know what you’re looking so smug for,” Will said, voice warped as he yawned, “you’re making it.”

“I am?”

“You are. I think I’ll watch her for a little longer.”

Hannibal looked to the spider, still spinning with no thought for them. _The intricate observing the intricate._ _The blind watched by one with eyes struggling to open_. _Will with his gaze facing inwards, seeing himself in a spider’s spinning._

Hannibal could pander to a whim if it were to such an attractive end.

“I shall call when it is ready,” Hannibal said as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

* * *

 

A week later and the sun was baking Baltimore into the nineties. People walked about outside in t-shirts and shorts with red necks where sun-cream had been missed. Kids jumped impatiently up and down next to cars stuffed with buckets and spades and beach towels.

He drove past an ice cream truck as he turned out of their neighbourhood and headed for the main road, its jingle passing in an eerie Doppler effect. Will wound down the window and turned the radio on, trying to find something worth listening to. He found a station playing a seventies block, Zepplin’s _Immigrant Song_ was pumped out at the populous as he drove from the urban to the wild.

Thursday morning, early, no traffic other than the drivers eager to get into work before the bell and impress their bosses. The sun was already powering into its working day. Will licked his lips and enjoyed the warm air blowing in, the changing smells of the city as he drive through, morphing to the cleaner scent that came from forest trees lining the road and the sight of the river through the gnarled trunks of oak and beech.

_Journeys out of the house; places closer to himself than high walls and bespoke furniture; being far from the madding crowd._

There was always an expectant peace when he knew he was going fishing. Not just something to look forward to but something to be swallowed by. No writing, no thinking about research, no worrying about work and deadlines, no stress. _Just the stream and the sun and the gossamer line._

Simple and isolating and utterly selfish in its relief.

Will was a good fisherman. He knew how to let out the line to give the fish some semblance of control. He knew how to reel in without causing so much distress that it fought hard enough to escape.

Sometimes he preferred letting life progress as he and Hannibal had become accustomed to, with a random, unpredictable element to cut through Hannibal’s own brand of obsessive control.

Then their anniversary. Then feeling unsafe in his own home. In his embrace. Then being unable to live with that kind of pain. Will wasn’t one to run from pain. Instead he wrapped himself up within it like a cold blanket, burrowed inside to find the centre. Absorb. Only this was a proving...different than usual. More difficult. Closer. Intimate beyond what he’d ever felt for the mind of an unknown killer.

Yet there was a similar feel to it. _Sometimes that same rush, when they played the games that started simple and snowballed into the Machiavellian._ The love he was given, it seemed like a shine that glossed over the surface; night time rain. Sometimes he thought that if he reached out and touched Hannibal that his hands might come away wet.

It would take time, he knew that. Time and patience.

_Will was a good fisherman._

He was on the motorway when the phone rang, and had a difficult time getting the Bluetooth around his ear one handed.

“Yeah?” he eventually answered as he fumbled with the volume button on the radio to mute the music.

“Still driving?”

“Hannibal. What did I forget?” he asked on instinct.

“To say goodbye.”

“Ha, really? And you say I’m the one with abandonment issues,” Will shook his head and watched a sleek, red ford Mustang slowly overtake him in the fast lane, “I left you a note.”

“I saw it. Very perfunctory. I thought we were going to the park today, the botanic gardens are hosting a rare hothouse orchid display.”

“We can go later, if you like. I just...wanted to take advantage of the good morning weather,” Will stretched the truth, quick to change the subject, “Did Alana call? I thought I heard the phone ringing when I left.”

“She did. Dinner on Thursday.”

“Dinner and a show,” Will smiled, thinking of Hannibal’s need for theatrics in the kitchen.

“It gives me little time to prepare.”

“And yet you always pull it off. I could catch something, if you want.”

“You would like to inject some chance into the occasion?”

“What’s life without chance? Striped bass, there’s lots of it where I’m going. Sometimes get some rock bass too. You liked it last time I brought it home.”

“I do enjoy something that had to struggle at the end of a line on my plate. I would not say no.”

“Carnivore,” Will labelled Hannibal with a smile, “So, is Alana bringing anyone?”

“Someone named Charles.”

“Charles? I don’t know a Charles. You didn’t ask?”

“I did not ask.”

Then suddenly there was an odd sound of a bump in the road, echoing slightly, odd because it came from over the phone.

“Are you driving?” Will asked, frowning as he moved into the far left lane for the upcoming turn off.

“Yes.”

“Ok. Didn’t know you were going out.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Hannibal, really, next time I go fishing I’ll be happy to wake you at the ass crack of dawn, drag you from your bed and make you compare fishing flies with me in the dark, ok? But that’s never going to happen, is it.”

“How unadventurous of you. You make me seem like a troll who must not be awakened till after nightfall.”

“Sometimes you are.”

The car in front drew closer as it slowed and the turn off approached; Will drifted into the tide of cars heading for the Patapsco. It was then, as he laughed while Hannibal began extolling the virtue of fairytale trolls, that the red Mustang which had passed him earlier suddenly dropped back and flicked his indicator to cut in. Will shook his head and stayed steady. He could see the guy driving as he stared at him through the window, lifting his hand to gesture sharply; _young, arrogant face, sharp haircut and overly pricey looking sunglasses, an embarrassed looking woman in the passenger seat_. Will cussed into the phone as the man tried to nose in when Will slowed, honking his horn.

“Christ, alright, alright,” Will slowed to a crawl and waved the guy through, sighing at the roaring of the oversized V12 hurtling in front.

Better to give in than let the idiot cause an accident. He carried on up to the junction, slowing to a halt. Will cranked up the handbrake and slumped in his seat.

“I seem to have missed something,” Will heard Hannibal say.

“Just some idiot kid overcompensating for something,” Will replied, shaking his head, “look, I’d better go. I’m nearly at the park. I’ll be back by two if you still want to go out?”

“Of course,” Hannibal said, “enjoy your wade into the steam darling.”

“I always do,” Will smiled, “bye.”

“Goodbye.”

Will watched the red Mustang turn right and speed off along the straight; Will turned left and paid at the toll booth.

_What he did not see was the sleek, black shadow of the Bentley sneak out from the queue three cars behind him, turning right to follow in the wake of the red Mustang’s arrogance._

* * *

 

“He brought it as a gift.”

“It does not go with anything I have prepared.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just, I don’t know, serve it with some cheese later on.”

“Montrachet is overpriced rubbish.”

“Hannibal please,” Will looked over his shoulder quickly to check their guests were still at the table, yet he couldn’t help the laugh puffing out because the entire day had been one disaster after another and this was becoming a cherry on the sundae, “just pour the wine. And pretend to like it?”

“I only work miracles in the kitchen,” Hannibal said, unimpressed as he jammed the corkscrew into the offending bottle, “you ask a lot of me.”

The entire day had been slightly bizarre. That was the best way Will could think to put it.

Firstly, the cat.

The next house along, number 43, had a grey and white tabby cat named Sprinkles. Will would admit he wasn’t overly fussed about cats. They were pleasant enough when friendly, more than vicious when not, but he didn’t dislike cats. So Sprinkles had, to an extent, been given a free pass to wander across territories, so to speak.

Sometimes Sprinkles caught birds in their garden, Will had found feathers. Sometimes he walked along the tall fence that separated their properties. Sometimes he yowled in the night like he was being put through a mangle. Once Will had even found him curled up and sleeping soundly on his chair in his lab hut. While Will kind of liked the random element Sprinkles injected into his pet free life, he knew their furry interloper annoyed the shit out of Hannibal because the man had begun to plant more rosemary and lavender around the fence as deterrents. Personally Will assumed it was the thought of cat hairs upon clothing and upholstery that did it.

Sprinkles had never ventured into their house. Not, of course, until Hannibal had taken the four rock bass Will had caught earlier that week out to defrost. It had been a special sort of odd to walk down the stairs, as he flipped through a brochure for the upcoming street festival, and find Sprinkles the cat hauling a fish as big as itself across the floorboards. Will had just stood and watched until the cat was down across the back steps and out into the garden.

When Hannibal found him sitting at the backdoor, watching the cat happily tear through scales and gobble the white flesh inside, he had merely questioned him with a look.

“I couldn’t help it,” Will shrugged, “it looks like it weighs as much as he does. I thought if he could make it to the door then he deserved to keep it,” he smiled as Hannibal sat down next to him, looking at the cat as if he wondered what it might be like in the oven, “Besides, there’s a couple of striped trout in the freezer too.”

“I’m sure Charles will not mind having the inferior meal,” Hannibal said with a glint in his eye.

“This isn’t going to be a thing tonight, is it? Just because he’s an anaesthesiologist?”

“I don’t know what you mean, dearest. The animosity between surgery and anaesthesiology is a myth. Now I must take out the other fish or there won’t be time to prepare it.”

Will wasn’t buying it. Hannibal was far too proud and vain not to give his guests the best cut of meat. He feared for Charles before he’d even met him.

Secondly the fact that their guests turned up unreasonably early. At five o’clock they had been in an intimate position when the doorbell rang.

The unfortunate position had come about because, since that afternoon’s run in with the cat, Will had begun subtly pestering Hannibal. At first it had just been a joke, making Will laugh under his breath whenever Hannibal sent him warning stare. Then it had become a challenge to see how long it would take to make the man crack when he was already irritated. It was so rare to find Hannibal noticeably unsettled that Will found he couldn’t resist.

He began moving things around in the kitchen when Hannibal wasn’t looking so they were in a different spot when he returned. Putting music Hannibal disliked on the stereo. Rubbing his slippers across the floorboards as he walked so they made a grating sound. Moving all the ornaments he came across at odd angles to the edges of their pedestals.

It had been five minutes to five, as Will had been in the process of rearranging Hannibal’s immaculate place settings, when he was grabbed forcefully from behind. One arm looped around his torso and arms, pulling them tight. The other wrapped its hand around Will’s throat and held it with gentle threat. A swift inhale and Will went stiff as he was pulled flush against a solid chest and a deep, almost rumbling purr emanated from next to his left ear.

“It is dangerous,” Hannibal said while Will tried to struggle, “to take your eyes from your opponent.”

“Can I help it if your neuroses are so fun to pluck?” Will asked, drawing in a deep breath to test his bonds.

“Spoken by one who knows what it is to be neurotic.”

“Touché.”

“It seems you are intent,” Hannibal leaned in to run his nose gently along the curve of Will’s throat; there was the barest scrape of teeth, “on having me dance to your tune.”

“Seems like I have to...” Will’s breath hitched and he closed his eyes as the arm at his throat tightened barely, but just enough, “...to deal with these little things you choose to share. These oddities. Best to do that directly.”

“I would say that the pragmatist in you is glowing, while other parts are perhaps going out.”

Will turned in the grip with difficulty, knowing Hannibal was savouring the feel of Will exerting his own form of dominance; the arm that had once caught at his throat now cradled the back of his neck, “Maybe they’ve all gone out. I’m good at seeing in the dark.”

“I don’t believe you. How would you prove it to me?”

“Oh,” Will smiled, feeling his heart quicken as keen fingers played with an errant curl by his ear, another curled to a territorial grip in his shirt, “wouldn’t you like to know.”

“A demonstration?” Hannibal smiled, almost showing teeth, enough to cause a shiver down Will’s spine...

...and the doorbell rang, “Jesus Christ!” Will blurted out, his whole body jerking in surprise, “what the heck are..? They’re due at seven!”

When Will extricated himself from limbs and hands and the little bubble they had created together, Hannibal did not look in the least amused, eyes cold and intense. Will felt that even Hannibal’s assurance that he would hold no grudge against the anaesthesiologist wouldn’t hold up for the night.

Thirdly, Charles Nicholson was a very odd duck, as Will’s father would have said. Red curly hair atop a bright, admittedly handsome face. A well tailored casual suit with a rather clumsy person inside of it all (he had already knocked over a hat stand, a glass of water and nearly toppled Hannibal’s ebony figurine of a rampant stag, only saved from disaster by Will’s quick reflexes).

They had planned to have aperitifs in the lounge but Hannibal had given Charles a tour of his home in order to waste the time Charles and Alana had created by showing up at five. Half an hour later a rather tense and agitated Hannibal was now looking as if he regretted the gesture.

“I’m sorry about the rude arrival,” Alana whispered to him as Charles enthused over Hannibal’s library and Hannibal carefully kept himself away from the man’s fervent gestures, “he got his times mixed up.”

“Seems like he gets most things mixed up,” Will observed, raising an eyebrow, “I pity his patients. You know he doesn’t seem your type.”

“He’s a friend of a friend,” she cringed and shook her head, “I promised I’d take him out. I didn’t plan on bringing him but he found out about my dinner invitation and...god this is going to be a nightmare isn’t it?”

Will smiled and let out a subtle puffing breath and a snort, covered by a quick cough.

“Tragedy, comedy, they’re pretty close right?”

Alana looked at him sideways, narrow eyes above a coy smile which refused to be the butt of the joke, “You know you looked awful flushed when you answered the door.”

“Did I?” Will asked innocently.

“Yeah, you did.”

She didn’t say another word about it, but then Will knew she didn’t have to.

It was suffice to say that Charles wasn’t making the best impression on his host. It seemed the man was enthusiastic about, well, as far as Will could tell he was enthusiastic about everything. At first it had been odd, then entertaining, and then slowly it began to wear on Will’s nerves. On several occasions Hannibal had caught Will’s eye and held it, his face reading something along the lines of ‘make this evening end, now preferably’.

Will was sure it was obvious only to him. Hannibal generally was.

“Hannibal, this is beautiful,” Alana had said quickly after the first mouthful of the starter.

“Cheek and tongue, braised in plum cider,” Hannibal explained.

“Oh ho,” Charles had smiled, wagging a finger at his host, “I see what you did there. Very nice. A little heavy for my tastes. Maybe this tongue spoke too much?”

“I’m sure it doesn’t any longer,” Hannibal joined in the smile as he tapped Will’s foot beneath the table; Will caught his eye and frowned through his smile. Hannibal said nothing.

Which had led to now, with the unwanted wine on the table and the cobbled together cheeseboard, half devoured. The evening had turned chill despite the day’s heat and the fire had been lit in the grate. It cast odd shadows on the walls and made faces seem as if they were dancing with expression. Will had felt heavy with the weight of the meal and the strange stress of the day. The sofa pulled him down into its soft confines while the French windows allowed the last of the daylight to filter through. There was a hint of stars in the fading sky.

“Is it too early for a brandy?” Hannibal had asked as he stood by the decanter and poured himself a glass.

“Depends on the brandy, I always say,” Charles had said.

“Frapin, eighteen eighty eight.”

“Well then,” Charles had said eagerly, “it’s never too early.”

“Only the best?” Alana said with a raised brow.

“I always believe in only ever enjoying the best of what you can have,” Hannibal said, “though I’ve not long finished a particularly special home brew if you’d prefer.”

“Please,” Alana smiled as Hannibal inclined his head, giving Charles his brandy before walking to the kitchen and through into the utility room where Will had been adamant that Hannibal keep the brewing equipment (the shed was now off limits since being converted into Will’s ad hoc lab).

Then he noticed it. It was short and gone within a blink but Will didn’t miss the subtle look of utter jealously Charles sent after Hannibal’s retreating feet. Part of him felt like laughing. It was always difficult for strangers to accept Hannibal’s easy charm and the endless bounties of his rich lifestyle, especially when your omega date was responding far more to your alpha host than to yourself. Will felt like giving Alana a heads up to the fact that she was reaching the point of flirting but, truthfully, didn’t want to deal with the fallout.

Home never felt so strange when there were people other than he and Hannibal within its walls. He felt like he might be sitting in a zoo, watching the exotic creatures fluff their feathers and snap their teeth.  It was only as he tuned back into the conversation he realised he was being addressed.

“I’m sorry, I missed that,” Will said.

“I said did you see the _Times_ today?” Alana said again.

“Uh, no I didn’t get a chance to go out to the store. There was a thing, with a cat...” Will trailed off, “Why?”

“Big expose on Claythorne. Was kind of grisly, for the _Times_ I mean. I think they’re trying to compete with the _Tattler_ market. Started bringing up old bones. Can you guess who they unearthed to get their sales up?”

Will smirked wryly and scratched at the side of his neck, “I couldn’t imagine. Baltimore’s number one most wanted?”

“Bingo,” Alana shrugged, “seems he still turns heads.”

“Don’t think there’ll be a time when the Chesapeake Ripper doesn’t turn heads. Or twist them right off. Still, I don’t like it.”

“Like what?” Charles asked, a slight frown, “I mean that’s just journalists, right? Do anything for a story.”

It always made Will itchy, discussing something as personal as the Ripper with a stranger. Alana was permitted, she knew it all, she’d been there while he’d dipped down into the dark waters. He licked his lips, swallowed, sniffed, and tried his best.

“Putting him back in the news,” Will said, picking at his fingernails, “it’s not flattering to be the serial killer who gets ‘brought up’ when a story like this is breaking news. Makes him seem...passé.”

“Then that’s a good thing,” Charles said, sounding oddly sober considering all he’d shown since his arrival was carefree air-headedness, “No need to make sensations out of human filth.”

There was an urge to laugh. A need that Will only just managed to resist. It had been so long, _an age_ , since he’d talked with a normal, down to earth person about his chosen expertise. Turned out that the normal, down to earth person could only see one half of the flipped coin as it spun through the air.

 _They saw the savagery and the violence and the hideous anarchy of a serial murderer._ They couldn’t see the other half of the coin as it fell.

“Let me ask you this,” Will said, “you’re standing by a wasp’s nest but none of them have taken notice of you. Do you kick it?”

“Of course not,” Charles said as if it were obvious.

“It’s the same thing here. He’s not bothering the _Times_ , then the _Times_ shouldn’t be bothering him.”

“Pretty on the nose there,” Charles said, eyebrow raised.

“Sometimes you have to be,” Will said.

“Yeah,” Alana nodded, “but then we all know that the press like to flaunt danger.”

“Sure do,” Will said quietly, thinking of Freddie Lounds with little fondness, “ _sure_ do.”

A hand slipped past his field of vision and Will looked up over his shoulder as Hannibal handed Alana her tall glass of beer, the colour of honey with a thick head of froth. When the hand stayed pressed to the back of the sofa Will looked up, catching an enigmatic smile upon Hannibal’s face as he leaned in almost conspiratorially.

“I don’t know,” he said as he swirled his brandy snifter, “there’s a certain thrill in chaos. Sometimes writers thrive under stormy skies.”

“Can we not talk about journalists?” Will asked sourly, “We were having a nice evening.”

“Had some bad run ins?” Charles asked with a laugh.

“For someone with an aversion to company, my darling has always garnered attention from the press.”

“Something no one wants,” Alana chipped in.

“Seems the Chesapeake Ripper did,” Charles said brazenly.

Will sighed, feeling his shoulders tighten, “Can we just..?”

“An interesting theory,” Hannibal cocked his head and smiled, sitting down to Will's left in a high-backed chair, “do go on.”

“Well the guy obviously loves the attention,” Charles said with a cocky shrug.

“Who says it’s definitely a guy?” Alana said.

“I did,” Will cut in quietly, his skin feeling itchy with discomfort, “forty to fifty, white, well off. Does anyone want..?”

“Well I mean that’s why he makes them wait right?” Charles continued to talk to a rapt Hannibal, “doesn’t just keep killing people over and over. Makes people wait to see what he’ll do next.”

“He’s a narcissistic sadist,” Alana said, drinking her beer as she leaned in to the table to plate up some cheese and crackers, “what do you expect.”

“Then you think he would be thinking of others when performing actions?” Hannibal asked.

“Yeah, gotta be, that’s a narcissist’s remit after all isn’t it?” Charles said, drinking, offering a quick, ‘ _damn good brandy by the way’._

“He was never caught, maybe he just knew that constant flaunting would lead to incarceration,” Alana said.

“I think...” Charles began.

Will stood up so suddenly that it garnered the attention of everyone in the room. He hadn’t meant to. In his head he’d wanted to stand up quietly, make a plausible excuse and leave the room. Now, with everyone staring, he found himself without the ability to lie.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he said bluntly, before walking out of the room and out of the back door into the growing dark.

In truth he wasn’t thinking about where his feet were taking him. They were taking him away from the cramped feeling, the claustrophobia of their voices, the utter, blind misunderstanding perfuming the room like a rank smell.

The padlock on the lab door was difficult to undo in the dark as he could barely see the combination, but finally it clicked. Will pushed in and turned on the lights, his shoulders relaxing as he closed the door. The smell was always comforting, even though he was sure that the faint turpentine, Kodak T-max developer fluid and luminol would be unpleasant to anyone else. He liked it. It felt real. Safe.

He pushed past the comfortable, second hand office chair, past the surfaces with their chemical agents carefully tidied away into plastic clip boxes and rubber mats with the Stanley knife he’d forgotten to put away earlier and the graph paper he’d been using, through into the room that had crept back into his mind ever since Alana had brought up the Ripper.

The room hadn’t changed much since he’d constructed it six months before. When he looked at it he was sure people would think it took him weeks to do, instead of the one night it had actually taken. _He’d woken from a nightmare at three thirty am when Hannibal had been seconded to Illinois on a complicated surgical case surrounding trials on paralysed patients with spinal injuries. Sweating and shivering, flinching at his own shadow, the nightmare clung to him like seaweed in shallow waters. He’s rushed out into the garden, shivering in the chill, and had started on The Room._

It was pretty much a place he had used to empty his mind of that particular nightmare. _A dream of the Ripper_. _Only it hadn’t been of the Ripper, not truly, for he had not envisioned the Ripper, tried to think of his visage. Instead he had seen himself there, carving through skin, muscle and bone, watching with a single minded precision as he removed lungs, severed limbs and created horrific masterpieces. A dark memory of how much he had willingly absorbed of a mind so starkly ruthless that Will had been unable to help admiring it even as it revolted him._

So he’d started one cork board, pinning up all of the copy evidence he still had from the case. Photographs of crime scenes, times and dates, case reports, maps with their failed attempts at trying to find patterns to his kills, newspaper articles. Then he’d begun emptying boxes of moulds that had been made of suspected murder weapons, reports from ballistics and the lab girls who had worked up some very creative ideas for how the Ripper had created his pièce de résistance, the Wound Man Jeremy Olmstead.

After four hours of pinning and placing and piling and joining together, Will had felt as if he’d done what he’d needed to do. The only problem was that, in emptying his head of the Ripper, he’d now created the man a space in the real world. A real, living environment. In a panic, seeing the evidence around him like a living memory, he’d closed the door and locked it.

Now he found himself back there. Key slipped from the hook he’d left it hung on, Will opened the door and stepped inside.

It was where Hannibal found him twenty minutes later. Sitting on the ground with his back to the wall, staring up at the world he used to revolve around. For a few minutes they existed in silence, broken only by creaking floorboards as Hannibal worked his way around the room, examining the emporium of blood and paperwork.

“I thought about burning it once,” Will said after a while, scratching at his arm where he had thought he’d felt an insect crawl, “not long after I stopped working at Quantico.”

Hannibal had stopped before a large scale print out map of the wound man, stuck to the corkboard like a prize trophy. It had been drawn on, written on and in some cases there were large holes in the paper which had been meticulously repaired with scotch tape ( _Will had many freakouts during the Ripper investigation, one where he’d punched the print out so hard that he bloodied his knuckles. Then he’d sat in the room emptied of agents by his sudden burst of violence and slowly repaired it, muttering to himself the entire time about not needing a doctor even though no-one was there to listen_ ).

“You decided not to I see,” Hannibal replied when Will didn’t continue.

“Mmm. I...I suppose I realised it wouldn’t have helped. It was all still,” Will lifted his hand and tapped at his skull, “dancing around in here. Sometimes it still does.”

“Oh?”

“I thought I told you not to psychoanalyse me.”

“I merely said ‘oh’.”

“Don’t play coy. I’m not...I just...” Will drew in a deep breath and stopped talking as he released it slowly, letting his head loll back against the wall.

After a short moment in which the silence returned, Hannibal walked over to Will and sat down beside him. For a moment Will was more amazed by the fact that Hannibal, in one of his most favoured suits ( _Will thought the colour looked like sky blue on a cloudy day, and a shirt and tie the hue and texture of pearl)_ sat down beside him on the dirty ground and leaned back against the wall.

“You feel you cannot let go,” Hannibal posited as he looked up at the accurate cast of a hunting knife, small and curved; he reached up to run his finger along the stubby blade, “because it is too much a part of you.”

“What did I _just_ say, Hannibal?” Will warned.

“This is not psychoanalysis, darling. It is catharsis. Only half an hour ago you walked out here because you could not stand a conversation in which someone was badmouthing the prey you used to chase. I hope I do not need to tell you how unusual that is. ”

“I just...” Will sighed shortly, hating that he couldn’t vocalise his thoughts clearly, concisely, “...I just think that no one ever saw him the way that I did, and parts of me, inside, they hate that and love that at the same time. I mean,” Will pulled his arms in around his middle and pulled his knees up like a wall before him, “Jack never saw it. Even Jack. Maybe Alana, in fact I was sure she did, which is probably why I hate to hear her talk about it so fucking flippantly.”

“What, darling?”

“That the Ripper wasn’t what the media made of him. He was something else,” Will said slowly, “I just never got the chance to figure out exactly what that was.

“I used to open doors, right into other people’s heads. I would walk around inside as if I were someone else, but then I could always come back and close the door tight behind me, lock it. With Hobbs, he was the first where I felt the door was left ajar for a long time after he was dead. As if killing him only made the connection deeper. The Ripper,” Will stopped to observe the walls, shaking his head, “he was the first where I closed the door only to realise that I’d brought something back with me.”

Silence. Will chanced a look at Hannibal to find the man looking around the room as if trying to guess what that ‘something’ might have been. Giving in, Will shuffled closer until their bodies pressed against one another. Hannibal lifted his right arm and placed it around Will’s shoulders without a thought.

“Thanks,” Will said after a moment’s peace in which they both sat, observing Will’s inner madness and accepting it for what it was.

“What for?”

“Coming in here to get me.”

“Anything to get away from that awful man.”

“Hannibal, really.”

“He is singularly trite. I dislike him, and I am sure he dislikes me in return.”

“He’s jealous,” Will laughed softly, unable to stop the broad smile stretching his face, “you should have seen the look he shot you when you left to get Alana beer.”

“Remarkable,” Hannibal smiled in return, “that someone as strong as Alana would chose a mate so weak in mind.”

“Oh come on Hannibal, don’t be so ridiculous.”

“I know. She must be seeing him out of some sort of obligation I assume?”

“Friend of a friend.”

“Ah. Then all is clear.”

As they sat the wind picked up outside, making the roof creak and the papers ruffle as it slipped in through the cracks. Will leaned his head down on Hannibal’s shoulder and drew in a long breath, savouring the scent of cologne and musk. In the comfortable silence he couldn’t help but laugh, soft and low less because anything was funny and more because he felt nervous voicing it.

“You can ask, you know, if you want.”

“What would I be asking, darling?”

“Thought I told you not to be coy?”

“How amusing. Are you working on your routine?”

“Prick. You know exactly what I meant.”

“Of course, but I would rather you not tell me exactly what that ‘something’ you brought back was,” Hannibal turned to place a soft kiss upon his forehead, “I would like to find out for myself.”

“Ok,” Will swallowed and huddled closer, “thank you.”

“You are very welcome.”

“Hannibal?”

“Mmm?”

“How long do you think we’ll have to stay down here before they’ll just leave?”

“Perhaps we should find out.”

“Sounds fair to me.”


	6. Show/Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He sought others who could see the world the way he did and he saw that love there. He was looking for understanding. People like to label him as they label any other psychopath, but isn’t it what we all look for in life? Someone who understands us and accepts us for what we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also to cutglasscaress, you pretty much predicted the tone of this chapter, no matter how much I tried to keep it light. I hope you enjoy the "ginger"...
> 
> As for Darcy Taylor, in the book series she was Lecter's 3rd victim of which the FBI were aware. She didn't have a sister, but I went for a little creative licence.

 

 

“You can’t wear that.”

“May I ask why?”

“Well I guess you _can_ wear that, if you want to be technical, but I won’t be there while you do it.”

“Then I propose I purchase you something matching. Perhaps good taste is transferable.”

“Give me a break. Look, there’s a line between pinstripe and looking like a pair of curtains in a catalogue. You’ve crossed that line.”

Hannibal turned from the full length mirror to regard Will, sitting on a wooden chair in the changing room waiting area with his legs crossed reading a food magazine someone had left behind called _Saveur_. Will had noticed the $45 price printed on the bottom left hand of the cover and had already decided to pocket it before he left and read snippets to Hannibal later while his husband prepped for dinner. Looking up from a full page glossy spread of a self proclaimed ‘ultimate chocolate caramel cheesecake’ Will was unable to hold back his laugh on seeing the mildly affronted, stony look on Hannibal’s face. Will shrugged and turned the page.

“I keep thinking that if you open your jacket I’ll see a sunny day on the other side.”

“Coming from a man currently wearing some checked monstrosity from..?” Hannibal prompted.

“Target,” Will said without shame.

He was greeted with subtle distaste, “and the silk shirt I bought you for your birthday?”

“It’s in the closet,” Will said as if it were obvious, “for special occasions. Now are you going to the checkout or have you come to your senses?”

“I certainly have.”

“Good. I’ll be outside.”

Once outside the overtly ornate and lavish dressing rooms (the stall curtains were red velvet and the chair he’d sat on looked like it cost more than their car) Will almost regretted not waiting for Hannibal. It was one of those shops, the kind that seemed empty due to the vast floor space pocked with elegant rails sporting barely two items each, wooden mannequins dressed in cashmere sweaters and pants woven from eight hundred thread Egyptian cotton. This left just enough room for the stares of the snobbish, rich kids paying with plastic at the checkout and the condescending smiles of the staff to find him as he stood by a rack of trilby’s and tried to look for the price just so he could complain about it later.

“Not the kind of shop where you look for a price,” he muttered to himself.

When he realised one of the attendants was approaching, a tall, leggy blonde woman dressed in a pencil skirt and a red blouse, Will closed his eyes and sighed. She’d been watching them since they entered and he’d been keeping her in his peripheral in order to avoid her.

He hated shopping with Hannibal.

“May I help you with anything?” she asked, arrogantly polite; he was more than aware that she’d left out the ‘sir’.

“Sure,” Will said archly, “you can go outside and have a cigarette. If I have to watch you stand over there and bite your nails and lick your lips any longer _I’ll_ start smoking.”

“I...” she looked taken aback, opening and closing her mouth.

Then a voice spoke from behind him, “Darling,” and Will turned to see Hannibal leaving the dressing rooms with an attendant in tow carrying the offending dark chocolate, striped suit draped in their arms. Will let his shoulders sag and left the blond shop assistant looking insecurely at her nails.

“So you’re not buying it?” Will asked.

“Of course not,” Hannibal smiled, small and subtle.

“Thank Christ.”

“I will have them take my measurements and tailor me two from scratch, of course. Although I must still choose a complementary colour for the tie. I was thinking perhaps coral.”

“And I’m thinking that if you think you’re buying _me_ anything out of here then I might as well certify you.”

“Surely my greatest offense yet,” Hannibal smiled softly as he flicked through a book of swatches, touching each to gauge the texture, “would you see me behind bars?”

“Just out of your clothes,” Will shrugged, pointing to a pearlescent pink swatch to which Hannibal hummed his approval of the choice, “I think that’s more mutually beneficial.”

Eventually they left the bright shop and entered into the grey world of overcast skies and mild drizzle. Hannibal put up his large golf-umbrella and held it between them. Despite the weather the streets were quite crowded; people on their lunch breaks hurrying through with no care for others, families trying to keep hold of wandering children, shopping couples trying not to argue about where to go next. Will huddled closer to Hannibal’s side and put his hands in the pockets of his khaki jacket.

They navigated in silence, the supercilious attitude of the shop still clinging to Will like a cheap perfume.

“Anyway, I don’t need any new clothes,” Will finally broke the bubble of quiet, “I have clothes; clothes that I’m pretty happy with.”

“I merely wished to make you feel more comfortable when you arrive in New Orleans. Even scientists can be snobs.”

“ _Even_? Don’t you mean especially?”

“Says the man who speaks for science.”

“Exactly, I know how they think. I’m a snob, I think I should know one when I see one.”

“I feel that somehow I should be insulted.”

“If you change the words it becomes a compliment. Uh, how about I say that you’re discerning? Anyway, you’re not the one going. I want to be comfortable, so just let me wear my damn suit.”

“As you wish. Still, if scientists are snobs then class is as class does, or so they say.”

“No one says that,” Will smiled, shooting Hannibal a sideways look.

“Maybe you haven’t been speaking to the right people.”

“I’ll be talking about the Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal, I don’t think anyone's going to give a damn that I’m wearing a cheap suit if they care about the words coming out of my mouth.”

This seemed to amuse Hannibal to no end. So much so that Will spent most of the journey staring at his husband as they drove home to watch for the emergence of an enigmatic smile which seemed to disappear as soon as it arrived, hiding some inner humour.

* * *

 

“Do you think eggs are sexual?”

Hannibal, in the middle of pulling some minced meat from a greaseproof paper bag, looked up at Will with his usual blank but curiously amused expression and seemed to ponder. Will, looking down at the stolen _Saveur_ magazine spread out gaudily on the oak table top, took a sip of red wine and extrapolated.

“I think he’s saying that eggs are sexy,” Will shrugged, “the guy who wrote this article, what’s his name? Michael Ruhlman.”

“His stance?” Hannibal asked as he began massaging the sausage meat into a bowl filled with paprika, chopped chives, crushed garlic and tamarind.

“Something to do with quiche, and creamy custard centres?” Will said while trying not to laugh, “I don’t know, this magazine is ludicrous, both in price and content. I’m beginning to understand that the emperor’s new clothes is a fable for the new age.”

On hearing the rustle of greaseproof paper Will frowned, looking up, “When did you go to the butchers?”

“Oh, this is something I’ve had in the freezer for a while,” Hannibal said casually, “I’ve had a mind to cook it when the time felt right. Speaking of, darling, could I ask you slice the ginger?”

Will took the large, sharp chopping knife he was handed and the stem of knobbly ginger, putting it down onto the chopping board Hannibal pushed his way.

“How much do you need?” Will asked.

“Well, as ginger can be unpredictable and irritating at times, and in some dishes utterly unwelcome, I’d say an inch. Peeled and sliced thinly as you can.”

“Thought you liked ginger,” Will said with a raised brow as he set about preparing the root.

“Tastes are subject to change,” Hannibal said with a smile as he threw the torn meat into the deep, heavy based frying pan, “sometimes things just rub me the wrong way.”

Will didn’t question him. His husband’s capriciousness was infectious, in as much as it made Will feel carefree whenever it crept in. Hannibal was such a creature of habit that changes in routine or preference were always welcome. Will sliced the ginger as thin as possible until the laid out pieces were as translucent fingernails. Hannibal slid them into the pan with the meat, adding the onions and the herbs.

“Well, I suppose this is a first we’re celebrating,” Will said as he returned to the table, taking a drink of wine, “me abandoning you, for once.”

“Should I say Freudian slip?”

“You can say whatever you like,” Will shrugged, “I’m leaving at, uh, about two forty five on Wednesday? Conference lasts four days. I suppose, during that, we’ll be able to see how the other half copes.”

“And I am sure I will be fine without you for a week, darling.”

“You say that now.”

“Our half, as you put it, has the luxury of not suffering through separation,” Hannibal said as he began adding the pre-prepared sauce to the meat, “not that I condone the inequality, you understand. Biology does not obey on a whim.”

“Oh of course,” Will said with shake of his head, “only that wasn’t what I was talking about.”

“I see, then you must enlighten me, as I am sure you will without request.”

“Mmm, I don’t know. I think it’s more fun to let you figure it out on your own.”

Hannibal sent him a warning stare, one with less warning and more stare. Hannibal did enjoy a challenge after all. Will took a drink and lingered in the feeling of eyes upon him, as if trying to touch; _testing_. He turned back to his magazine and the moment passed.

One year and five months since their exchange of vows. Will caught himself watching the play of light upon his white gold wedding ring. He didn’t think it felt that long. Time was elastic, compressing and expanding with the emotions of the moment. Up until a few months ago Will knew he was wary, still constantly amazed that he had allowed himself to end up caught in the sort of situation where he found himself tied to another so tightly that it itched at his skin.

Now, it felt like both a blink of an eye, and the age of time beyond time since he’d even first met the man currently dicing celery while reading from a small, handwritten card taken from his orderly recipe box. At times it was difficult to remember how much of life had passed by when they hadn’t known each other well enough to predict words, answer requests that had never been spoken and miss each other like severed limbs.

And yet Will knew there were parts missing. It had become a part of his existence now, that he knew his mate so intimately that he was well aware of the gaps. Just as he kept his own secrets from Hannibal, so did Hannibal keep his from Will. And that was ok. He could admit to himself that he did not always know why Hannibal was the way he was and not allow that to keep him awake. It had when they’d married, it had eaten at him. _Will always had to know why_ ; _Will normally knew people, inside and out and all the bits in between, absorbed and subsumed sometimes without his consent_.

Not to say he knew _nothing_ , he wasn’t utterly without insight. Hannibal was easy to discern on the surface, but the deeper he dug the more he tended to hit stone rather than dirt. Recently, after months of trial and error, Will had decided upon the oblique approach to clinical psychology; observing the world as it was acted upon by the subject, instead of how the subject themselves reacted to the world.

The room in which they were currently in, for example, spoke volumes.

Hannibal Lecter’s kitchen. Just like the man himself there were obvious things which covered up and detracted from the truth: incredibly neat, clean countertops; the meticulous way Hannibal separated his ingredients into individual bowls in specific amounts before adding them to his cooking; the subtly expensive hardwoods used for the cupboards; the luxurious range of cookware and knives and fresh hanging herbs and the induction hobb and the quiet-close drawers and the pristine view of the back garden.

Will remembered the first time he’d taken his eyes for a trip over Hannibal’s treasured room and picked out the one neuroses that couldn’t yet be explained by what he knew of the man who owned it.

The doubles: that was the anomaly. Things came in pairs, where they could. The two bottles of sparkling water by the twin utensil holders, followed by two tall, blue bottles of perfumed rose water, for palate cleansing and flavouring Turkish delight. Two identical copper kettles sat beside the butler’s sink, then down by the potatoes and the carrots in their dry bags, sat two tall, slim bottles of Sicilian olive oil. Inside the pot cupboard, two milk pans and two steamers. In the spice rack, everything was doubled up. On the windowsill sat a lone bonsai, but another was hidden expertly in with the cookbooks on the long wall shelf by the door, like a bookend. Even the pen and ink drawing on the wall was of an old fashioned kitchen sporting milk churns and cheese wheels, which Will was sure tickled Hannibal to think of a kitchen within a kitchen. Two light fittings, two freezers. Even Hannibal’s antique coffee maker held a wonderful balance to its design, like a mirrored image.

At first he’d tried to explain it through logic; it made sense to have a second bottle or jar of condiments or ingredients in case the first ran out, and then the other examples may have only been mere coincidences. But then when he took it further...

Symmetry. He saw it everywhere. It leaked out into their household, beyond the kitchen door: two coat hooks in the atrium; the rack of antlers in main hall was mirrored by another at the opposite end; always two towels each in the bathroom; in Hannibal’s embellished table displays everything came in pairs, _from apples to feathers to origami flowers_ ; strange twin copies of identical books resided in the vast library; picture frames upon mantelpieces always came in pairs; bowls of decorative items held pairs of each, _pine cones, wooden bell peppers, ornate seashells_ ;  when Will left three glasses out by the decanters, Hannibal would come by and take one away to leave two; two mirrors in the bedroom; two chairs and two couches in the living room; two lamps in the atrium; two rugs in the front hall; two photographs on the main mantel in the living room; almost every suit in Hannibal’s wardrobe was a copy of another, residing beside it; two taps of his fingers against his temple when he was stuck on a problem; two sets of cufflinks, buttonholes, watches.

Symmetry was order, and order was control, but sometimes...sometimes he wondered if it was simpler even than that. He wondered if sometimes he tried to overcomplicate his husband, when really he should take the problem back to its root. Something ingrained, deeply so, something that would have to come from youth where the mind was still malleable and susceptible to programming.

Hannibal was a set of nesting dolls, always showing a new image when the larger one was cracked and opened like an egg, its contents leaking out slowly. Over time Will had come to his own conclusions about Hannibal’s many personality quirks, but sometimes he wondered about the symmetry.

About the doubles.

Sometimes he wondered about Hannibal’s sister.

* * *

 

“You have everything you need?” Hannibal asked for the second time.

“Almost,” Will joked half heartedly, reaching up to clumsily cup his husband’s smooth jaw and lean in for a chaste kiss.

The airport was noisy and cluttered at this time of day. Will wished he’d taken a later flight, but he knew he’d need the time to rest and settle himself when he arrived in Louisiana. It always took Will time to settle in an unknown environment, just walk around and orient himself with the layout before he could sleep. He wondered if he’d been a cat in a previous life.

“I am sorry I will miss it,” Hannibal sounded genuine and Will smiled.

“I’ll give you a private lecture when I get back, if you like.”

“Am I to take that as an innuendo?”

“No,” Will laughed, looking surprised, “damn, I probably should have made it one. I actually meant I could give you the lecture.”

“I like to listen to you talk shop. Does that make us strange?”

“I hope so.”

They leaned together, slotting perfectly into a gentle hug as the tannoy announced Will’s departure.

“I’ll call when I get in,” Will said, a little muffled as he spoke into Hannibal’s coat collar.

“Until then I will be waiting for your call.”

Pulling back was difficult, so much so that Will forced himself to make it seem as if it weren’t difficult. Truthfully he didn’t know who he was trying to fool. Hannibal looked up at the large digital departure screen to their left and his lip twitched, nose wrinkling.

“I should go,” Will said.

“Of course, darling.”

Will was sure the flight would have been long, if he weren’t so busy re-reading his preparatory notes, making sure he had the itinerary down pat, making sure his hotel bookings were correct, making sure he had time to visit other lectures and displays at the conference, checking up on his contacts and taxi numbers.

All so he could ignore the itch.

* * *

 

So far, everything had gone smoothly. From Airport to taxi, to hotel, to hotel _room_ , to meeting his conference aide, to going to sleep, to waking up, to taxi, to conference centre, to signing in and setting up. Everything had moved like clockwork. He’d missed that, the efficiency of events like this. It reminded him of how his life had worked before he’d separated himself from it.

Their team at the BAU had always run like clockwork, mainly because most of them knew each other so well that no questions had to be asked. Will knew he’d been a spanner in the works of their efficient unit most of the time, mainly because most of the time no one knew what Will was thinking. Or would want to know even when they asked.

The only drawback he had found, so far, had been the endless number of people he had to deal with. Lectures, for Will, were quiet and rather intimate affairs. While he’d been teaching psychoanalysis and profiling at Quantico he’d been dealing with students who, while highly trained and accomplished in their own right, seemed to fall into two camps when it came to him; awe or fear. Not awe in as much as staring at him with dopey eyes and trailing around after him like shadows, and not the sort of fear that made people jump if he came too close or stop them asking questions, but nearly all his students had fallen into one of those two camps. It created a very intense learning environment, but also one in which Will didn’t have to deal with much unwanted interaction.

It was only ever him talking to them and them listening to him. It was never social, which was how he liked it. Here, on the other hand, he’d been introduced to and asked questions by at least a dozen people before he even got to the auditorium. His throat felt itchy and he coughed a lot, blaming it on the air conditioning. Eventually the aide for his stage had spirited him away backstage to get set up, when a woman who passed them by in the grey corridor did a double take, then smiled tightly and walked back.

“The infamous Will Graham,” she had short, red hair and reached out to shake his hand even when he didn’t offer it, “looking forward to the autopsy.”

“I...I’m not sure...” he found it difficult to articulate with her still touching him.

“Just kidding,” she said, even though Will thought she didn’t look like she was in the joking mood, “don’t you kids joke up north?”

It had rattled him a little, but then most things did. Taking it and hiding it away was easier than bringing it out and dealing with it. Somehow, when he stood on the stage, everything dimmed back to a humming familiarity that allowed for peace of mind with which to counteract it. Will took a short breath through his nose and let it out the same way while the technician swapped over the podium’s microphone.

“Should be good now,” the man told him, doing a quick sound check, then adding, “sorry about that folks,” to the waiting auditorium.

Will nodded. He looked up the large digital screen behind him, flashing up with the first slide. The title was bold black on white.

**_The AFFECTIVITY of PSYCHOPATHY_ **

“There won’t be any questions during this session, so please keep them till the end. If you do have a question get the attention of one of the conference staff and they’ll get you a mic. I don’t like shouting.”

Starting with the standoffishness he needed made him feel less exposed; it was just lucky he didn’t care about being rude. A few coughs. A couple of heads turned to mutter to other heads. Will waited until it was clear; he wouldn’t begin without full attention.

And then he began. It was nurturing. He remembered this, almost regressively, like the dull hum of a womb. Being submerged, finding his place and sliding back inside like an eel in the coral. Hidden and dangerous and something no one else wanted to touch.

“To not understand is to become afraid, as the maxim states; we fear what we do not know. In relation to psychoanalysis, and as I believe of science in general, the inclination is the complete opposite. We seek understanding of the pathological, at every black hole we wish to turn on the light and see what’s waiting there for us. Yet,” Will paused, licking his lips, “if we are to pour our beings into objectivity, why is it that we blind ourselves, purposefully, when it comes to understanding the minds of those in our society that we find the most distasteful, the most alien.

“The study of sociopathy and psychopathy is nowhere near as wide, or most think so, between that of psychopathy and affectivity. As Cleckley stated in the first study, psychopaths show a ‘general poverty in major affective reactions’ and a ‘lack of empathy or shame’. Psychopaths are incapable of emotional connection,” Will said the words individually, with emphasis, “it’s rule one in your handbook, I’m sure,” a soft laugh rippled through the auditorium, “so we dismiss it. We rule it out before it’s even spoken aloud. We base all of our collective data on this premise. As a scientist, I hate to think of data being essentially falsified by being fed through a machine that refuses to fully understand that data on traditional grounds. The machine sees it as a _jump_ from psychopath to someone with a healthy, emotional balance, instead of seeing it as what it is: a connective line.”

They listened, without questions. Will appreciated that from a room which he was sure was statistically eighty percent alpha, currently being told what to do by an omega. It let him progress un-impinged; _he talked through reports, statistics, previous caseloads._  By the time they reached the meat of his lecture Will felt that the glasses he was wearing were no longer really necessary. It had been a while, a long while, since that had happened.

“When Garret Jacob Hobbs, known before his capture as the Minnesota Shrike, abducted and murdered eight girls he was incredibly specific as to his preferences in his victim. Same hair colour, eye colour, roughly the same height, weight, same age; all the same as his daughter, Abigail,” Will felt his voice fall on the last word, clearing his throat before continuing, “yet for one of his victims, Emily Nichols, there were patterns in his behaviour that could only be explained by shame and regret. Emotions that should have been utterly inaccessible to Hobbs. He returned Emily to her home, tried to heal her wounds and make her, essentially, comfortable in death. Here we see the love for a daughter seeping into his treatment of his victims. And what a lot of people will be questioning now, yes I see your hands please put them down, I’ll answer questions at the end. What a lot of you are wondering is that there were nine victims of the Minnesota Shrike, not eight.

“Official records state that Hobbs claimed nine, his ninth being Cassie Boyle,” Will clicked and brought up a picture of the crime scene, as tasteful a photo as he’d been able to find, “but as far as closed case records state the ninth victim is perhaps another’s work. Cassie also fit Abigail Hobbs profile, but Garrett Jacob Hobbs did not murder her. The killer who did wanted us to know that, know that he wasn’t the Minnesota Shrike. There were inconsistencies with the display of the body, this killer was elaborate, _always_ elaborate, in his displays. Also changes in manner in which she was killed, this killer was proficient and efficient, as well as the fact, the _main difference_ , being that Cassie Boyle had her lungs removed with surgical precision.

“He wanted us to know he was better than Garrett Jacob Hobbs, while also showing that he was honouring Garrett Jacob Hobbs. This is a complex little hive of emotions occurring here; appreciation, pride, understanding on an emotional level to be able to care about the way the kill was perpetrated; we might call this a form of empathy. Psychopaths are pathologically egocentric, but here we see imitation, the sincerest form of flattery. At the time we labelled him a Copycat,” Will took a drink of water from the bottle on his podium, “but my theory, the less popular theory as many of you are I am sure aware,” he said with a self-deprecating smile, “is that the Copycat killer and the Chesapeake Ripper were one and the same. Please, questions at the end. Now, in terms of externalising and internalising we must consider...”

Old wounds, and old victims with old wounds. A cavalcade of slides, each dissected and dissecting. The Chesapeake Ripper stared out from each, calmly and with, Will was sure, a placid smile of appreciation. The Ripper had always enjoyed being enjoyed. Now he enjoyed that Will couldn’t escape: _it always came back to the Ripper._ Will reminded himself that he’d almost refused to appear here, to talk about the man whose work would live on long after he was dead or caught, and yet, in the end, he had said yes.

Knowing why was damning and yet invigorating. When the time for questions rolled around Will felt that feeling dim. _Now_ , he thought rigidly, _I‘ll be sociable._ Many age old queries were thrown at the stage, from accusations about the FBI’s abilities during the case considering the Ripper was still at large, to questions about his methods, about unrelated topics, about his monograph. When Will began to get into the rhythm of trotting out easy answers, one took him off guard.

“If the Chesapeake Ripper is the Copycat, as you say, then couldn’t he have been doing this for someone else other than the killers he was honouring, as you put it?”

For a moment Will stared out into the dim auditorium and wished he could see the face of the person who had asked the question. A woman’s voice, she sounded animated but he wanted to see her face. _Know her intentions_. He remembered Charles and Alana and being unable to talk about the Ripper with people who just didn’t _understand_. Will took a breath and forced himself to see past that.

“The Chesapeake Ripper is, excuse me...” he stopped, taking a drink of water, in order to stall, looking for the right words, “...well, the thing about him is that from the moment I started working his case I felt...I _understood_ that he was unlike any psychopath I’d ever read about or dealt with before. Truthfully? I don’t even know if psychopath is the correct label for him. So in relation to his patterns and how that may affect his reasoning, I’m afraid I don’t have any conclusive answer.

“He has many of the pathological traits, yet he has an anomalous ability for patience, he could go months, even years without a display. He has great capacity for meticulous forward planning. He had little regard for those he killed but he had regard for those he imitated. And yes, I suppose there is a chance that there was someone he was trying to...impress with his work.”

“Did he succeed?” the questioner said, sounding like she hadn’t expected the answer.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand your...” Will swallowed as the meaning sank in; he took a breath and swallowed, hating the grittiness in his throat, “Are there any other questions?”

The next was completely unhelpful, “Actually I think I second that question,” the next person echoed.

Will sighed, gripping the podium. The answer was one he didn’t want to give, mainly because it meant remembering his decent; remembering how it felt to think as if he were looking out from behind another’s eyes and _understanding_. And knowing that he would always understand. He licked his lips and closed his eyes as he spoke.

“For psychopaths, true psychopaths as we understand them, as you are taught about them, as is written about them...they have no capability for empathy. It’s baggage, it’s just worthless baggage that wouldn’t do any good even if they could feel it. It gets in the way of their true strengths, which are manipulation and, when highly intelligent as the Ripper is, understanding a person inside and out to the point where they know you better than you know you. But to say they have no emotions?

“I’ve seen psychopaths work together before but the patterns are very distinct. I have never seen a lone killer _appreciate_ others to the point of bonding with them. Appreciate and admire their capacity for violence and their ability to transcend, as the Ripper saw it, the mundane and the banal. To make art imitating the true pain of life. That death was the pain of life, but also the beauty of it. The problem, the reason, I believe, that we never got our hands on the Ripper was because of just that. He isn’t a psychopath, not truly. We couldn’t force him into the mould that all others slid into. He was...he _is_ above that. He is a man who enjoys doing bad things, but not necessarily because they are bad. There was a very specific reason for his murders which sure, included your run of the mill narcissism and sadism, but underneath that there was something that you might want to call empathy. When I look at it I see it as something even more,” Will sighed roughly, “maybe you would call it even more unbelievable but it wasn’t empathy it was...it was loneliness.

“He sought others who could see the world the way he did and he saw that love there. He was looking for understanding. People like to label him as they label any other psychopath, but isn’t it what we all look for in life? Someone who understands us and accepts us for what we are.”

* * *

 

It was on the third night that the redhead caught up with him again. Will had spent ninety percent of his time in his hotel room, going over notes, running programs for his research data from his uplink in Baltimore, phoning Hannibal, watching movies and having bad dreams. His cough had worsened to a throaty hoarseness; he’d started taking lozenges but knew he was ill. He thought a light quarantine was better than being a carrier. And it suited his mood.

The other ten percent of his time had been at lectures and going to the vending machines at three in the morning when no one else was around. And trying to ignore the gnawing thought:

_He did it for you, he made them for you, he created works of art so he could watch you loathe them as much as you were fascinated by them._

It had been a chance fluke that, when he’d picked up the phone to put in his order for room service, the line was dead.

“Fucking hell,” he’d muttered as he clicked the receiver again and again; still no dial tone.

He’d contemplated phoning down on his mobile but the obtuseness of the action bit at him. _Just go downstairs for crying out loud_ , he’d mocked himself. He tried to argue that it was better to rest, the illness was still riddling him, but he’d fought against that too.

So he had, walking on brown carpets through cream walls with oak doors passing him on either side of the elaborately long hallways like an illusion perception test. Will both hated large hotels for their labyrinthine nature, and loved them for the anonymity they offered. In a place as large as this, what were the chances of running into anyone you knew?

Which was why he’d felt betrayed by that love when, as he was sorting his phone problem and his dinner order at the front desk, muttering and refusing to look the concierge in the eye, a voice called out,

“Well isn’t this a coincidence?”

Will looked up out of surprise, jittery, and swallowed the needles in his throat on seeing the same woman from before; short red hair, pale skin, only now wearing a green v-neck dress and high heels to match. For a moment Will just stared at her shoulder, before saying something that might have been ‘hi’ before finishing up with the concierge. The woman didn’t leave. She waited until he was done and then started speaking to him as if it were her turn, following Will until they were near the small cluster of armchairs for waiting guests.

“I suppose most people from the conference are staying here, huh,” she said, “are you headed to dinner?”

“In my room,” Will qualified with a tight smile.

“Shame,” she said, “I’d hoped to pick your brains a little more about the Chesapeake Ripper.”

Will stalled. Swallowed. _He thought back to the question, that voice_...

“You, uh, asked me something at my lecture?” Will put forward even as he made to walk away back towards the elevators.

“Oh, you remember me?” she said with a smile; _not a nice smile_.

“Sure,” he said vaguely, wanting to do nothing more than get back to his room.

“Do you?” she asked again harshly, stalling his movements, “Do you remember me?”

It was difficult, more difficult than anyone without his disorder could understand, but Will looked up and caught her stare, _red hair and oval face and pale skin and green eyes,_ and his eidetic index flicked back through hundreds of faces until he froze on one. Hell, he thought, oh _hell_.

Remembering case notes and photographs and red roses, _the Ripper had used roses for Darcy, as if a love letter to her demise_ , and sobbing relatives that Will had never met but had seen on news reports and in magazines and things he’d purposefully shielded himself from. Will flicked his eyes left and right before blinking, focusing back on her shoulder.

“You’re Darcy Taylor’s sister.”

“You do remember,” she said, sounding bright and confrontational; Will didn’t want to do this here. He didn’t want to do this _period_ , “I suppose that gives you a few points over the rest of them.”

“I really need to get back to my room,” he said as he turned to leave.

“Don’t you _dare_ turn your back on me.”

His heart jumped and he froze. Will knew why and he wished he could control it. The pain, he could hear it even though she hid it well, turned it into anger. Could feel it hit him, absorb through the skin. He sniffed, turning back to the woman who stood before him like a judge and saw the pain in her.

This is why I don’t socialise he thought with desperate humour as he felt himself trapped in by it, _the guilt and the pain and the fear of it_.

“I didn’t turn my back on you when I stood there and watched you tell a room of hundreds of people about the Chesapeake fucking Ripper’s _emotional side_.”

“I wasn’t trying to...”

“I don’t care what you were trying to do,” she said, managing to keep her tone normal enough not to attract the attention of those in the wide, spacious lobby, “I care about what you do. What you all did or _didn’t_ _do_.”

Keeping quiet was the only option, even as his nerves began to fry. He felt warm, a little dizzy with it. Apologise? His brain laughed. Apologise for not catching the maniac who murdered and mutilated her sister. What good does that do, Graham? What good does that do anyone?

“Did you come here to tell me this?” he asked, “Or to see what I had to say?”

“Both,” she said bluntly.

“My thoughts aren’t going to give you peace.”

“Yeah? Well you know what would give me peace?” she said, her face twisting into an angry stare so intense he was unable to look away, “You keeping your goddamn thoughts to yourself. He killed my _sister_. And he’s killed god knows how many other people’s sisters and brothers and the last I ever heard of your so-called investigation was that you were close to something and then nothing. Nothing. _Nothing_.”

The weight piled high, enough that Will could feel it resting squarely where she wished to put it; on his shoulders. _Why couldn’t you catch him?_ It asked. _He stopped killing before I got a chance to see him_ , Will responded, _to know, I was so close but_...

... _but you chose survival over justice_. He was well aware of why he’d stopped hunting the Chesapeake Ripper, even if the man still lived in his world. To save himself from completing something he was sure he could never have come back from.

“It’s not a closed case,” he tried to console, “The FBI are still hunting him.”

“And yet you’re here, making money off a lecture where you espouse the doctrines of psychopaths. You know what? I think that everything they ever said about you is true. You’re the one they should have in a fucking cell,” her voice was hitching.

He felt like a fool, but yet couldn’t stop himself from saying, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” because he was.

He really was.

“Not fucking good enough,” she said tearfully before leaning in and spitting squarely in his face.

Will recoiled but didn’t retaliate, eyes closing on instinct. Unable to see, he could hear her walk away, her heels clicking against the floor. For a few moments he didn’t breathe. When he finally let out the breath he was holding he found himself fumbling for the handkerchief Hannibal had insisted he take, folded meticulously in his jacket pocket. It seemed like a mere consolation but the soft silk smelled of Hannibal as he wiped the spit from his face.

Walking back to the concierge revealed, if the man’s discomfort was anything to go by, that he had seen everything. Will cancelled his room service. The bar let him buy a half bottle of rum to take back upstairs. Time became slow and sticky as he succumbed to a bout of contained desperation. The bottle was empty by the time he picked up the phone and messily dialled the familiar number.

 _He was good at taking it quick, just to get the ethanol into his blood stream. Had it down pat._ _They come in waves. As he got older he knew what it meant to drown. Urges like this do feel like water in the lungs. Whenever he closed his eyes it sat there with a welcoming smile. Sometimes, he smiled back._

There was no answer. He left a message.

“Where are you? I didn’t want to...” he stopped, trying to make sense, “maybe she’s right. Maybe I should be in a cage. You know that, though. You know what I am because you see me. Why didn’t you ever do anything about it? You let that Cheshire smile sleep next to you with the antlers in his mind, hooves running, running. You must’ve seen it in me, so why do you smile back?

“Sometimes I feel like...I’m fading. I don’t know if I did it right. But if everything that can happen happens, then you can never really do the wrong thing. You’re just...” the beeps rang out, signalling the end of the voicemail, “...doing what you’re supposed to.”

Will Graham curled up on top of the covers of his sterile hotel bed and fell fitfully to sleep, holding the phone close to his chest with arms curled to hold his heart in.

* * *

 

Ringing. It hurt. Will opened his eyes marginally, only a slit. Things were almost bright.

_Did I fall asleep with the lamp on?_

Ringing. He unfurled slowly. He felt the ringing in his hand, _right hand or left hand?_ His arms ached, muscles tired from hours twisted in too tightly. His skin prickled.

Ringing. By the time he managed to answer the ringing stopped. Will stared blearily at the screen, showing a missed call. When there was a knock at the door he looked at it as if it were taunting him.

Getting up was torturous; he felt cold from not being under the sheets and yet simultaneously hot under the skin. His head felt axe-split from temple to temple. Walking was disorienting. When he reached out for the door to turn the lock it opened before he had the chance. Standing up too quickly caused him to stumble, catching himself against the wall with clammy hands.

They stared at each other through the open door.

“What’re you doing here?” Will asked tiredly.

“I would have thought it was obvious,” Hannibal replied.

“If it was obvious I wouldn’t have asked,” he said, leaning his head against the wall; it was cool, he needed that. His skin felt warm, hot, “what are you smiling at?”

“I would have thought _that_ was obvious,” Hannibal said as he closed the door behind him, put his small luggage carriers down in the corner, and then gathered Will into his arms; there was a pause, in which Will allowed himself the luxury. Hannibal pulled back and lifted the scent from the air, sniffing. A hand was placed against Will’s forehead, “you are feverish. How long have you been unwell?”

Laughter was definitely not the answer Hannibal had wanted; the stony glance told him everything he wanted to know.

“Since I was born,” he laughed, coughing roughly, wetly, “thought you’d noticed,” he laughed again, “you brought two bags.”

“Hardly the time for trite observations,” Hannibal said as he led Will to the bed and sat him down.

“Are there two pairs of socks in there, two toothbrushes?”

“I am going to undress you.”

And he did, meticulously and efficiently. Will didn’t help, constantly shaking, muttering and slumping to the side. By the time he was naked he lay shivering on the sheets, curled in foetus-like. Hannibal hunkered down by the bed and observed him, asking him gently to open his eyes, checking his pulse and smoothing his hair back from his forehead. When he pulled the sheets up across him Will shook his head.

“Please don’t.”

“Do not fight me, Will. There is a twenty four hour pharmacy nearby. I have put water on the bedside table. Try to drink. I will be back soon.”

Even through the haze of flu-fog Will recognised the anomaly. Hannibal hardly ever called him by his given name; _darling or dearest_ , but Will only when Hannibal was to be taken seriously. He lay there, in the gloom, and tried to understand who he was.

_Will Graham, darling, dearest, his father’s pup, his mother’s abandonment._

_The Ripper’s love letter._

He didn’t think he was asleep. He did remember hearing music, a warm melody to match the warmth of the room, the warmth of the thin sheet, the warmth of the unspoken animosity in the air.

_Excuse me_

He sniffed, blinking his eyes. The world shuttered in and out of focus.

_Excuse me, can you help?_

When it finally cleared, Will looked up from the edge of the bed to find two large, black eyes staring down at him.

It was big. Bigger than he’d expected. Then he had to ask himself, _why did you expect it?_ Somehow, in this warm, comfortable air the question seemed irrelevant. Instead the large, black stag sitting down on his hind legs in the middle of his hotel room seemed utterly logical. Its impressive antlers racked up towards the ceiling, so much so that it seemed to stoop down in order to stop them from becoming tangled in the light fitting.

“Did you ask me a question?” Will murmured sleepily.

 _I seem to have lost something_ , it said.

“Oh?” Will said, trying to think of what his dad always asked him when he lost things, “Where did you leave it last?”

 _Right here,_ the stag nodded its great head down, making the antlers rattle like caged bones, _and now I can’t find it. There should be two, but now there is only one._

The air swam with gloom, but for the crackling of the fire in the grate against the far wall. The warmth cuddled their forms, cocooning them. Sparks bobbed about, floating like stars through the smoky nebulous clouds. On the floor between them sat a small table hosting a bowl of dead flowers, heads drooping like tired old men.

There was a wonderful normalcy to the fantasy of it all, like a vilified escape. It swamped him happily.

“Do you miss it?” Will asked, the sound of a clock ringing out from another room in the background.

 _I don’t know,_ the stag said, bristling its feather-fur as a raven might do; the firelight from behind made it seem larger than it was, or perhaps it was larger than it was, which made Will realise he didn’t know how large anything might be and he felt suddenly small.

“You don’t know?” he asked.

 _I don’t think I ever knew it to begin with_ , the stag asked dolefully, _surely better to have never known and lost, than to know and lose it all._

As he woke the feeling of displacement and unreality followed him. His eyes blinked open and he became aware that his head was moving. Then it stopped. Then a set of fingers appeared in his hair and dragged through carefully. When he found the wherewithal to look up he found Hannibal above him reading a book, and then managed to centre himself; _his head upon a warm lap, cradled_. He cleared his throat and looked left, half expecting to see black eyes staring back at him. Instead he found a clean, painted wall, _no grate, no fire, no table, no flowers, no stag._

“Did I wake you?” Hannibal asked.

“No, I mean...I don’t know,” Will licked his lips and closed his eyes as the fingers caressed his scalp; his voice was quiet and weak. He wasn’t sure how to remedy it.

“You were talking,” Hannibal said as he put his book down with his left hand, “how do you feel?”

“I was dreaming,” Will murmured, as if he could still feel it clinging to him; there was a sense of loss there, that he’d never found out what had been misplaced by the...what was it? Already the particulars of the dream were fading, until only feeling was left. The world seemed foggy and distant, “What did I say?”

“You asked a question. ‘Do you miss it’,” Hannibal looked down at him and caught his eye, “would you sit up for me, darling? I have medicine I would like you to take.”

He did as he was told. Two pills: the thought made him shake his head. _Doubles, doubles, doubles._ Naproxen, washed down with Acetaminophen. They went down with difficulty past his inflamed throat. He gagged on the first, choking it out onto the floor. Hannibal was patient with him, as always. Will felt as if he were beneath the watchful eyes of a large cat; _was it patience or apathy? Was it love or loneliness?_

Will spoke without the ability to think about why it might be a problem, “I had a twin, did you know?”

Lying down as he was he couldn’t see Hannibal, but Will could feel him, feel his hesitation. Less a worried hesitation and more a hesitation that spoke of being caught out. The silence was all the more obvious for the fact that Hannibal was rarely without words. Will rolled onto his back, slowly, agonisingly, the sheet twisting around him, constricting. From his expression, seen from below like a small child might, Hannibal appeared alert and interested, as well as hesitant and wary.

“You never spoke of a sibling,” Hannibal said eventually.

“No, no I’m an only child.”

“You are incoherent, darling. It’s best that you sleep.”

“I’m fine,” Will reached up and blearily rubbed his eyes with his left hand, “it wasn’t...sorry, I’m not fine. I don’t know why I brought it up.”

 _You do know_ , his conscience mocked.

There was a silence. Will focused on breathing in and out; _in, out_. The aching in his body was matched by his mind’s stiffness. His mouth and his subconscious seemed to have formed an alliance without his knowledge. He cleared his throat again and winced, coughing. Still he took his opportunity. He knew that Hannibal’s silences were always an opportunity.

“I did, have a twin that is,” he started, “but only one of us made it out alive,” the silence lingered invitingly, “I swallowed him whole, in utero. Guess I was a survivor even before I was born.”

Bright eyes watched him closely, and when Hannibal spoke it was difficult to tell where he was, “What brought this on?”

“...lots of things, I guess. Do I have to pick one?”

“Why pick just one?” Hannibal smiled, “I am sure they are all utterly entertaining.”

“Did you know Darcy Taylor’s sister was at my lecture?” Will saw Hannibal cock his head, his smile never leaving his face, “Hmm, no, how would you know that,” Will muttered, “she was. She asked me, she found me and asked me how I could claim that the monster had feelings.”

“She was upset?”

“She was angry,” Will said, “and upset. I don’t blame her for it.”

“For what, dearest?”

“Spitting in my face. I think it was mild compared to what she really wanted,” when Will looked up Hannibal was still, very still like a picture of a man rather than a living, breathing human being, “I think she saw the...the monster on my skin.”

“Only monsters can see other monsters. And only the presumptuous and the arrogant can presume to label them as such. If we were to be honest with each other perhaps we could say we see each other clearly, and yet all this time and I never knew I was living with a chimera.”

“A real monster,” Will tried to grin but it failed as he held up two fingers and wriggled them wearily, “Two sets of DNA. It depends where they take the sample from. I didn’t know until I had to have blood tests for my anaemia in high school. It’s odd, isn’t it?”

“What is?” he was asked as Hannibal wiped at his brow with a damp cloth. Droplets of water trickled down into his hair.

“That I’ve never really thought about it? I never really thought about having a brother or a sister. I mean I knew that other kids did, but I didn’t. Then it turns out that I’m carrying my brother with me; always have been.”

The silence had changed. At first he couldn’t tell if it was for the better or the worse. Hannibal’s hand continued its rhythmic caress, but Will thought he could feel the minute change in tension in the thighs beneath his head, the slight aberrances to Hannibal’s steady breathing. The room seemed less the warm cocoon of the dream and now some sort of other world; a reality not wanting to be touched.

“Darcy’s sister, she’ll never come to terms with her death. She’ll never see the other side of it because she doesn’t want to. And I...I never had the brother I ate before my mouth even knew food. And you...”

A pause. The room seemed close and momentarily on the edge of terrifying.

“Why do you never talk about Mischa?” Will asked before he lost the nerve to.

A soft sigh was all he was met with, and a tipped head as Hannibal pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. It had been what seemed an age since Will had learned of the name. _Mishca Lecter._ Not from conversation, nothing so concrete. It had been a photograph, sitting on a mantelpiece in the vastness of the Lecter estate like a hidden lie.

On their first ever visit to Hannibal’s aunt and uncle’s, when they had announced their engagement, Will had been given time to himself. Half because Hannibal had wanted time with his family, and half because Hannibal’s aunt had wanted to spend time with her nephew. It had turned out there were lots of rooms to explore in order to get away from the myriad of servants, gauche wealth and prying eyes.

Somehow he’d ended up in the East wing, which appeared mainly untouched. Long corridors and bright daylight hidden behind heavy curtains. He had wandered at will like an intrepid explorer, waiting for someone to turn up and find him. Or maybe stop him. Instead he found himself in a room that seemed like a mishmash of many things, disused furniture half covered by dust sheets, sturdy cardboard boxes half open and labelled on yellowed card.

And on the mantelpiece above the clean fireplace, sat three framed photographs. In each Will had clearly recognised Hannibal, shown in different stages of life. Will had gathered them up and taken them with him, feeling like a thief. It had been in a bid to know more, a need to feel connected, to prove to Hannibal that there was reason in the madness of their relationship.

When he had shown them to Hannibal later that evening the man had looked mildly surprised, but obliged nonetheless.

_“This is myself and my aunt,” he had said when Will had silently prompted him to tell by handing the frames over as they sat together on the bed, “in France, where I grew up. We have a villa there, in a little town called Gigaro. It is a beautiful place. I should take you, it holds many fond memories for me. I must have been fourteen here, yes fourteen. I recognise the kimono she is wearing, you see the doves stitched into the hem?”_

_Will nodded, sliding in when Hannibal put his arm around his shoulders and gently pulled him close._

_“And this,” he said picking up the second, “this is my graduation from Lyc_ _ée, before I moved to Baltimore.”_

_“So young,” Will commented._

_“I attended when I was just sixteen. It was a beautiful time, so much activity, so much ambition. Yet sometimes not so free as I would have liked. There was a most persistent policeman who harassed me then, not that I remember his name. And this,” Hannibal picked up the last slowly, carefully, as if it were a timid creature that might bolt from the scrutiny, “my, I must be no more than three.”_

_“It’s good to know you always looked so serious,” Will said with a small smile, “but who’s this?” he’d asked, pointing carefully to the young child beside Lecter, chubby faced and smiling in a white toddlers lace dress._

_Hannibal sniffed, twitching his upper lip in a familiar expression that only afflicted him when he was unwilling. Will was tempted to take the words back, swallow them up, but then:_

_“My sister,” he’d said, surprising Will; when they’d first spoken of family Lecter had said he was an orphan and no siblings had been mentioned, “Mischa.”_

_“Oh,” was all he could think to say, struggling not to blunder he continued, “she looks like you.”_

_“Yes,” Hannibal smiled softly, “we were very much alike, in a lot of ways. She died young.”_

_“Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought these...”_

_“It’s perfectly alright. She is always with me, so I do not have to miss her. Come, we should dress for dinner. My uncle is a stickler for timekeeping.”_

And that had been that. Will wasn’t foolish enough to press when the subject seemed so prickly. Yet now he felt the veils had been lifting from them, one by one they had slowly allowed each other to reach out and pull the shrouds down, or simply remove them without prompting. Now Will felt that they were in a position to explain themselves. In a place occupied by only they two.

Again the familiar twitch hitched Hannibal’s features, _lip pulled up as his nose wrinkled_ , and he once more ran his hand through Will’s hair with exceptional tenderness. Will could feel the dampness against fingertips, as if pulling at threads in his mind.

“It is not an enjoyable memory,” he said with unusual bluntness, “and sometimes I do not feel qualified to...shall we say that there are still certain things that I do not feel qualified to accept the reality of.”

“I think I understand. Sometimes I barely feel qualified to live in the same house as another human being. God knows how I made it this far. I mean I’ve been so preoccupied for most of my adult career with taking life that I’m having trouble wrapping my head around making one.”

“When men become fathers, they undergo biochemical changes that affect the way they think.”

“Funny,” Will said, taking a deep breath; he lingered that way for a while, mind floating. Eventually he returned, “a professor once said the same thing to me of killers.”

“Fatherhood is not always a nurturing role. Fathers can be killers. In protecting a child, things trapped inside a man for years fly free, ready to explode in pain. And dangerous behaviour,” Hannibal looked down to him once more, “what sort of father will you be?”

He’d thought it would take more consideration, but in the end Will felt confident when he said,

“I’ll be a good father.”

A warm smile was his reply.

“I imagine you will. Yet how quickly we form attachments to something that does not yet exist.”

“I’m not attached,” Will shrugged, rubbing his chill fingers together; it seemed so very odd to find they were not cold at all, but hot, “just...anticipating attachment. Sometimes I used to imagine what it would be like to have had a sibling but it never stuck. It never sat right. This is different.”

“We have a deep-seated need to interact with our children. It helps us discover who we are.”

An odd thought swam into his mind and his feverish mind had no problem with asking, “Have you ever been a father?”

“I suppose you could brand me with the title. I was a father to my sister. She wasn’t my child, but she was my charge. But cruelty has a way of slicing through happiness, and she was taken from me. Time flows only in one direction and yet...occasionally, on purpose, I drop a teacup to shatter on the floor,” Hannibal sighed as Will watched him, observed his melancholy and knew it as an old pain, a pain that had been lived with for many years, absorbed, assimilated, “I’m not satisfied when it doesn’t gather itself up again. Someday, perhaps a cup will come together.”

“Soon,” Will said, finding Hannibal’s hand with his own and grasping it tightly; Hannibal watched him, “perhaps soon, we’ll both turn time back to when we were whole.”

Hannibal watched him, his face utterly passive except for his eyes; intense and vivid. Will licked his lips and took a breath and coughed, unable to stop. His body shook until he rolled onto his side while Hannibal rubbed gently at his back. He found himself staring at the foot of the bed, at the rumpled bed sheets and Hannibal’s legs ending in his socked feet.

“And if your sister lives within you,” he said slowly, “and my brother within me, perhaps there would be something of them both in our child. May be that the universe shall contract and time reverse and teacups come back together again. A place in our world for all the things that should never have been lost.”

“Darling,” Hannibal said, so quietly that Will almost missed it; fingers cupped his face and caressed his cheek, “perhaps. Perhaps.”

It was as they lay there, twined in body and in thoughts, that Will reached up with an unsteady hand and rubbed his fingers against Hannibal’s trouser leg. His husband frowned as he continued his rhythmic stroke across Will’s slick skin. Then;

“You’re wearing that fucking suit,” Will said, as if amazed.

Hannibal’s laughter followed, though its true meaning was known only to him.


	7. Sex/Science/Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Brave and yet fearful. You are a stunning paradox. I think you are very capable, you would simply fear it. I do not want you to fear me, Will.”
> 
> “Then don’t ask me to...” Will swallowed, sitting up; a tugging in his gut that had pulled him here, over dark roads and open limbs and corpses fresh from the Ripper’s graveyard, he’d crawled here like a stray dog unsure whether to bite the hand that fed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is out of the timeline, flashing back to Will and Hannibal's fateful first night together (as mentioned in chapter 8 of 'Il Faut Souffrir Pour Être Beau'). I thought it would be interesting to look at the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind Will's loss of his initial suspicion of Hannibal as the CR, which is something I never fully explored in the story.  
> Also, smut.

“You’re staring again.”

“It’s not staring. It’s concentrated dislike.”

There were two feet between them but he and Beverly stood together, mirrored against the wall; both slouched, arms folded, staring. They stared separately. Beverly at the chromatograph as its needle swung up and down in its long, metal tubing. Will at the man currently in amiable and yet intense discussion with their section head.

“I think you should call it what it is. It’s concentra _ting_. You’ve been doing that a lot recently. On him.”

“Makes himself difficult to ignore. How much longer?” he asked, tipping his head to the complex machine separating out the contents of the gas found on their charred victim, currently lying on a mortuary slab two doors down.

“About...” Beverly leaned forwards to get an angle on the digital readout, “fifteen minutes. That’s fifteen more minutes of watching time for you, before you have to actually talk to him.”

“I’m not talking to him.”

“Oh,” Beverly smiled subtly, as if laughing at her own joke, “have a domestic did you?”

“Can’t have a domestic if you’re not _domestic_ ,” Will countered a little too quickly; he hated that Beverly waited. She was too good at waiting. Patience of a saint. Eventually Will sighed, looking away as he scratched at his stubbled jaw, “he won’t stop asking me to dinner.”

“Maybe you should go then.”

“And what? Spend the entire night telling him why he’s everything that’s wrong with society and _then_ tell him why I’m so sick fed up having to explain the same fucking thing over and over again? I don’t think that goes well with appetisers.”

“Or you could, I don’t know, talk to him like a human being. Just a suggestion.”

“He’s not a human being,” Will said, levelling his gaze at that immaculate back hidden beneath a forest green suit, and beneath that... “he’s a sphinx. And I’m not getting into riddles. It’s a slope I don’t want to slide down.”

“Maybe he just thinks you’re hot,” Beverly shrugged, smiling slyly.

“He can think whatever he wants,” Will said, looking away quickly as Lecter turned towards him.

His heart had skipped up and over itself. His skin itched to return its stare to where it had been and see, see if he _knew._ Only it was too mawkish. Worrying. Will could tell that wasn’t confined to him alone; it was difficult for Beverly to hide the amusement in her eyes as they laughed at him. Only it was more difficult to swallow when it was laced with pity.

Pity was the last thing he needed. Mainly because it was also on his list of things about society that he just fucking didn’t need. Not that anyone really understood that. Not really. Even friends, those who he could call friends even if it wasn’t how others might think of friends, still gave him commiserating stares when it seemed he had lost out on an opportunity to be happy with someone.

To be where they thought he should be.

“You’re pathetic, you know that right?”

“If I didn’t, then I do now,” Will said, hating that he was sure Hannibal had caught him in his _focused dislike_ which was an awful lot like _concentrated staring_.

God he hated Hannibal fucking Lecter. Hated his fucking aristocratic, ivy league educated speech and his bespoke outfits and his charm and his stupid, immaculately parted hair. He hated that the man didn’t do what others did, didn’t pander to Will’s status or go through the tired motions of courtship or try and purposefully impress him or fight Jack for control or actually _fight_ Jack in order to impress him (it had happened, once).

He was just _there_ , being perfectly likable in a conceited sort of way. It was something Will thought he could have dealt with if Lecter would just leave him alone. Or if Will could make his thoughts leave Lecter alone.

 _This would all be so much easier,_ Will thought as the two men approached, _if he wasn’t so damn interesting._

“So, what have you got for me Katz?” Jack asked, his pock marked face alight with the praise Lecter had surely been plying him with; it appeared to be Lecter’s ploy in that department.

“Nearly ready Chief,” Beverly said, “couple more minutes.”

“Perhaps Will has something he would like to add?” Lecter said, looking at him suddenly.

“Not particularly,” Will said, deadpan.

“Oh? I thought you were trying to catch my attention. My mistake.”

“Don’t worry,” Will said, pushing up from the wall to walk off, “you’ll get used to it.”

And he’d allowed himself the rest of the day, congratulating himself on his witty comeback...before realising it had been pretty petty considering he’d been staring at the man like he might be about to steal something and he’d probably just said it to be courteous, considering how anachronistically gentlemanly he could be and, fuck...

...he’d texted Lecter an apology. Standing in his house, in the middle of nowhere, in the darkness of a winter night, Will stared at the words ‘ _message sent’_ and wondered where his resolve had gone.

* * *

 

_ Four weeks later _

At first he couldn’t tell what the problem was. There were so many to choose from. Should he pick the chill of the upper rooms that made him uncomfortable? The fact that he didn’t seem to be able to draw in enough air? Maybe the fact that he could barely stand without support? But then he wasn’t sure if that was more to blame on his biological state or the fear. There was anxiety and apprehension, and then there was the fear, definitely the fear. It beat in his heart, which was doing a triple time rhythm.

His biological state, that being one of whom was currently undergoing sensory overload. The suppressants were gone, like a veil being lifted. He was a blind man able to see the world again. A deaf man able to hear music playing. A mute man shouting for joy in the streets. _All the world was his playground, and Will Graham was hiding, terrified, down under all that stimulus_.

The one that kept him upright was also his greatest challenge. They walked together, like a chimera, all twisted limbs hanging onto each other. When Will thought about it later, _at the time he had no ability to think_ , he would realise that Hannibal had not let go of him since he had found him in the library. Always a hand on his body somewhere, fingers around a wrist, arms circling shoulders, back, the side of a cheek against his neck.

Lips. Lips against his clothing. His skin.

Eyes. Eyes on him. They might as well have been touches.

How had this happened? It was a joke. A pretend. A Make Believe. For such a long time he’d tried to imagine that the taciturn attention Dr. Lecter paid him was a play. A play he would use to hound the younger, less experienced social hermit for his own amusement. Wasn’t that why others did it? Paid attention to him to make him uncomfortable. To watch him squirm and see all those nasty _differences_ pop up like welts on his skin.

_Let’s see you speak in public out of your lecture theatre, Graham._

_Let’s see you deal with crowds, Graham._

_Let’s see you catch someone’s eye, Graham._

_Let’s see you function without the suppressants, Omega._

So maybe it had been instinctual, to hate him. Hating him was easy because Hannibal made himself so easy to dislike. The rich, social alpha with his easy charm, his money and his education. His simple beauty. Sometimes Will had gone as far as to force himself to believe Hannibal mocked him with his mere existence. A carven monument to his unglazed clay pot, one which shone out all the brighter for the comparison.

Then he had forced himself to realise that if he added one more adjective or metaphor to the list he used for Dr. Lecter, he would have to start admitting more worrying things to himself: like how much time he spent coming up with said metaphors and adjectives _. Try and wiggle out of that_ , his conscience would supply when Lecter would attend a coroner’s report, the blue nitrile gloves seeming out of place muddled in with his immaculate ensemble of paisley and tartan and navy blue as he spoke of laquer and agonal changes and the subtle panoply of petechial haemorrhageing on pale, dead skin.

He had paid too much attention, far too much attention to a man who he disliked with such a passion. It was a slippery slope to acceptance, greased by many things: Hannibal performing life saving surgery upon him. Hannibal never paying a blind bit of attention to Will’s standoffishness or his bluntness. Even his rudeness, which seemed to be a first for Lecter considering what Will had seen of the man’s other interactions (rudeness seemed to be the eighth deadly sin). Hannibal never being tetchy or aggressive or annoyed at Will. Hannibal having a dry, dark sense of humour. They all counted as the _grease_.

Of course Will stopping his suppressants was the main contributor. If he was to be fair, Will knew that he could have held out against Lecter until the end of time if he would have only stayed on the Antryphodene. Instead, for the sake of the case, he had been off them for a full twenty four hours, enough for them to be utterly out of his system.

Enough for him to be drowning in scent and sight and sound and ready to _scream it all_.

And it had been sudden. It seemed too sudden to be real. He’d known as soon as he stepped into the house that it had been a mistake; _wits left on the doorstep as he allowed his senses to act for him, telling him everything he’d been missing all this time_. He’d come because of Olmstead, but now he’d stayed because of Hannibal. Now it was real because of Hannibal Lecter.

Maybe it wasn’t, he told himself as he was walked backwards into the room. _Maybe it was all a fantasy?_ Only the hands at his elbows were real, holding him tightly to keep him steady. And the expensive cotton beneath his hands was real, as he gripped Lecter’s biceps to keep his hands from shaking. And where their hips pressed together and their chests pressed together and their thighs brushed _were_ real. And the breath at his throat was real, as Lecter spoke softly; calming words, gentle.

_‘...and you take such time, don’t you Will. Such time. So graceful, I don’t know how I missed it. Have you always been so very shy? I admit I thought you were more of a blunt instrument. Would you look me in the eye and tell me what you want? Would you..?’_

It seemed rude not to. Didn’t it? Spikes of intuitive charge, rushing though his system. _Shock, shock, sizzle, beat_. Every time that hot breath clouded against his clavicle Will shook, hands gripping tighter. _Is this what it’s like to need?_ For a long moment they stood, still and together, entwined in the low light. When he tried to look around himself Will realised his eyes were slightly out of focus.

“Where?” he cleared his throat, blinking, “I don’t know where this is.”

“Safe,” Lecter replied, still _hot wet breath against his ear and Will couldn’t think and wouldn’t if he hadn’t been so damn high on the smell and the touch and the taste, god the taste..._

“Could you stop that?” he took a sharp breath then let it out, long and slow against the white clad shoulder before his mouth.

“What would you like me to stop?”

“You...” Will closed his eyes and hummed distractedly as one of the hands moved from his elbow to his right hip, finding a natural handhold across the bone, fingers tracing in between his waistband and his shirt, “you know what I mean. I...is it just..? I don’t know,” Will laughed but it didn’t last, shaking his head, “I don’t know. You’re very distracting.”

“What am I distracting you from?” the mouth asked as the _hot wet breath_ moved down from ear to the soft part of his neck behind his jaw, never touching, only waiting. They swayed together, although Will thought that maybe he swayed first and Hannibal simply compensated for the movement. It pulled them marginally closer.

“Nothing in particular...just, _everything_.”

“Everything and nothing,” the lips said; they sounded like they were smiling, “how apt.”

“I don’t...know,” Will took another deep breath, held on tight and then let it loose, “you really need to, I mean could you just put..?” somehow he managed to unfurl his right first, pull the claws out of the cloth it clutched and shakily cradle the well trimmed nape of Lecter’s neck. It didn’t take much to pull him close, closer, _close enough to that hot, wet breath_ to feel it followed by the lips that spoke.

Then the lips that spoke were against his throat. Will realised he’d had his eyes closed for longer than he’d meant to, but it was so difficult to open them again. The nerves at his throat were singing some obscure, unknown song. Will realised he might be breathing too hard, caressing that well trimmed nape just a little too wildly while those lips carved ecstasy onto his skin. When they stopped all Will could think is that this hadn’t done anything for his calm at all. He felt dizzy and his legs were weak.

“I might need to,” he raised his eyebrows and shivered, “I think I might need to lie down.”

“Of course.”

“Uh huh.”

It turned out that the bed wasn’t far because the unknown place he had been taken to was the bedroom. A convenient place to be steered, one which Will wasn’t sure should make him happy or furious. Right now it made him _relieved_ , but later he would be able to decide on the whole happy/furious angle.

Sunken down into an ivory duvet, plumped up around him like a marshmallow, Will lifted his shaking hands and rubbed them down over his face then back up over his eyes. The sound of frustration that leaked from his throat wasn’t entirely genuine, but he hoped it masked the embarrassment he didn’t want to voice. This was unfamiliar, in more ways than one. And unfair, it was very unfair. He hadn’t felt desire this all encompassing since he was sixteen years old and that was, what? He was thirty five, just shy of thirty six. So it was nearly a good, solid two decades without ever thinking of _this_. Of offering himself to someone else and telling himself that was ok.

Only now it wasn’t about overcoming his fears of physical contact and intimacy and trust and virginity and just being with someone else. It was trying to survive the hectic, drowning sensation that his hormones were swamping him in. And all, in turn, fighting with the intuition that had brought him here, led him towards the front door of Lecter’s up-town-house like Theseus following the thread.

Only this thread had led him to the beast, not away from it. _Am I here to slay you?_ he asked himself, staying perfectly still, _Or be caught. I think I’m caught. Maybe have been for longer than I wanted to be._ The thought was chilling. Made the hairs stand up on his bare forearms.

 _Don’t be a fool, Graham,_ he told himself sternly, _don’t be the guy who cuts out his eyes to spite his brain._ He’d been wrong before. He had. This wasn’t something he’d thought was certain, he just...needed to know.

“I’m not sure if I can, um, stay,” Will pulled his hands down and laid them on his chest, looking down to the foot of the bed and losing his words altogether.

Lecter looked back at him, vermilion tie in his hands freshly removed from a now empty collar, first button undone on his shirt. The tie was quickly and efficiently folded in half, then again, and placed on the long, low cabinet behind him.

“I wouldn’t dream of stopping you,” Lecter said casually as he continued to unbutton his shirt.

“Stopping me what?” Will asked, voice almost a whisper, brow furrowed in confusion.

“From leaving, if you wish to.”

“Right,” Will licked his lips and looked up at the ceiling, listening to the steady, wild pulse of his body, “of course. Uh huh. I’d rather,” _are you crazy?_ he wanted to shout at himself, _are you insane or are you just weak?_ , “you just come back here.”

“There?” Hannibal asked, gesturing to the bed as she shrugged out of his shirt and began folding it just as neatly.

“Here,” Will nodded, eyes once more trained on the new revelation, like an unwrapped gift.

Dark chest hair, sprinkled with grey. It was obvious his body had once been stunningly athletic, whipcord muscles beneath silk. Now age had deteriorated it, giving way to more girth around the middle, a slight stretchiness to the muscles as they played across his arms, a slackness to the skin. Will couldn’t have cared less. It was as if he were staring at the sun, so bright it was painful to look at.

His hands were now twisted tightly together as he watched Lecter undo the button, then the zip and then take his trousers and his briefs down with one, slick movement as he folder from the waist. The bending rumpled the weight at his belly, but Will found himself distracted by the revelation of long, powerful legs. And, when he stood up, the black run of hair down beneath his naval leading to the nestle of curls between his thighs.

Clearing his throat didn’t help the fact that he could neither comment nor breathe correctly; kept sticking in his throat. He tried to go for long and thin inhales and exhales through his nose, while in his head all he could clinically think was: _I’ve never actually seen one in real life. Well, not on a living person and that’s odd, isn’t it? That’s odd, Graham, you’re an odd person._ Somehow it seemed embarrassing, even though he hadn’t admitted it to anyone but himself. Lecter’s penis was long and thick, slightly flushed along the length as it stood semi-erect, as if propped up from between toned thighs by the heavy knot at its base. The shape wasn’t unfamiliar, he’d seen textbook diagrams, biological studies that had included the alpha reproductive system. He had even seen corpses naked as the pathologist exposited their theories.

To say that this was different seemed utterly redundant, yet his scrambled mind wouldn’t allow for anything more. It was different because he was being made different by it. The sight alone made him blink rapidly and his nostrils flare subconsciously in order to pick up the scent, that wild scent which seemed to effuse now that genitalia were suddenly involved.

 _Sudden genitalia_ , his brain decided to offer in a hysterical distraction, _great name for a rock band._ There was a need to laugh, one which Will quickly lifted his tightly clasped hands to stifle because he couldn’t _laugh_ , not now, he couldn’t let the man undress before him and then _laugh_ in his face. And then there was a sound of feet walking and the mattress dipped to his right and suddenly the full length of physical desire was laying down next to him on its back.

For a while they lay there, together, both staring at the ceiling: Hannibal with his hands resting upon his abdomen, Will with his still clasped at his mouth. Another crazy, aborted laugh shook his frame and he closed his eyes again. _Breathe_ , he told himself, _don’t forget to breathe._ Bringing his hands down was a slow process, one which trusted that he wouldn’t laugh again.

“I thought...” Will started, then thought: _you can’t tell him this_ , and then was forced to change his mind when maroon eyes clicked to him, “you know I thought I hated you, for a long time.”

“We have only known each other three months.”

“Seems longer.”

“Hate is a swift emotion. It likes biting first, consequences later. What is it that you hate?”

“I don’t,” Will swallowed, licking his lips, “I never...I don’t hate you. It was...it wasn’t important. Did you?”

“Hate you? I have never hated you.”

“Despised me? Ridiculed me? Pitied me?” Will asked, feeling liberated on asking, yet fearing the answer.

“No, on all counts. I have been curious about you. Does that constitute more of an attachment than hate?”

“I never hated you,” Will reiterated, feeling annoyed that he’d brought it up at all.

When the silence drew on Will thought he could hear the soft voice and could already feel the _hot wet breath_ at his ear again, even if there was a good two feet between them.

“It is no good,” Hannibal said, sniffing; Will looked to him from the corner of his eye, frowning, “it is necessary for you to suffer through exposure. Something tells me it is the only truth I might get out of you. So I think it would be beneficial if you were to follow my example.”

“Your example,” Will said, deadpan.

Another smothered laugh. _Follow my example_. This was _insane._ It was one mad thing to watch the man who had haunted his thoughts for months now suddenly strip before his eyes with no warning, but...

“I can’t,” he said, unable to hide the laugh this time because he felt so nervous that he thought he might hyperventilate if he didn’t and that couldn’t be attractive, could it? “I really...can’t. Not with you looking.”

“Well, if I do not look it defeats the purpose.”

“I don’t do audiences.”

“I did not know one person constituted an audience.”

“Semantics. Please don’t get into semantics. I can’t.”

“On this we disagree. You are more than capable.”

“What would...”

“Brave and yet fearful. You are a stunning paradox. I think you are very capable, you would simply fear it. I do not want you to fear me, Will.”

“Then don’t ask me to...” Will swallowed, sitting up; _a tugging in his gut that had pulled him here, over dark roads and open limbs and corpses fresh from the Ripper’s graveyard, he’d crawled here like a  stray dog unsure whether to bite the hand that fed it._

From here he could look down to his right and see those long, powerful legs, thighs, the tip of that flushed cock that seemed to embody the need in him, “ _Jesus_ ,” he whispered, “this is crazy. I need to go. I’m going, ok?”

Then he was standing at the foot of the bed, looking down at the discarded clothes there, _briefs and trousers and socks_ , and for a moment he was amazed. The revelation stopped him: that Hannibal had managed to leave them crumpled in a pile there. Such control, Will knew Hannibal suffered from it. Acute OCD, it was everywhere in the man’s life, _earlier_ , _in the library where they had kissed, Will had studied the man’s compulsive disorder in the sight of paper set to exact degrees in line with the edges of desks, items spaced at level intervals that could probably be measured with a ruler_.

He had watched the man purposefully move things that others had put down until they were exactly where he needed them to be. Had watched him suppress the need to fidget when someone put a dirty tissue on his table, or put a glass down without a coaster, or not take their shoes off at the door. Lecter’s need to control his environment was matched only by his need to control himself.

Enough that the sight of the disorder at his feet only jumbled Will’s resolve.

 _Is it that important?_ He wanted to ask, turn and blurt out. _Why is this so important to you?_ A foolish question, one that made him feel trapped. Feel those eyes boring into his back as he stood facing the wall. Standing there at the foot of the bed, staring down at the rumple of material that caused the wings of chaos to spin a hurricane.

The first button was the hardest simply because his fingers had been so tightly wound together for so long that they were stiff and bloodless. It made the first button take longer than he’d hoped, _get it done, get it out of the way and then you won’t have to worry any more._ The second was easier, then the third. Taking it off was harder. Reaching down to take hold of the hem with both hands and lift was something he knew he’d never have been able to do were it not for _that scent_ and the _those clothes_ and _that chaos._

His Henley shirt was dropped into the mounting pile on the floor. Will only became aware that he was shaking when he drew a breath, listened to it stutter in and out. Shaking hands undid his jeans, noting they were still wet from the rain at the hem on each foot and it had soaked into his socks. A hesitation, a deep breath and then a pull, bending at the waist and rushing out of his socks as he took off each leg, one after the other from the knee. When he stood and turned, he couldn’t help but fold his arms across his abdomen loosely.

Maroon watched him, trailed its colour across him slowly. He couldn’t help but wet his lips. The soft, low light cast Hannibal in an almost sombre state like some ancient burial, trapped in between the duvet, hands upon his abdomen, shadows sharp on his face; as if candles might be burning somewhere. The perfuming scent was venomous, sinking into his lungs and poisoning him.

“Will?”

“Just...dizzy.”

“Lie down with me.”

He nodded, switching to breathing through his mouth, soft and long and low. He climbed onto the bed right knee first, then arching forwards onto all fours and crawling up, back to his original spot. Once more they lay together. Nothing in the air but breathing, enough that it made Will self conscious. He curbed his agitated breaths, trying to calm down. The silence was difficult to bear, mainly because it left his mind time to do the dirty work: _what’s wrong, have I done something wrong? Doesn’t he know I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing? He must know, this is really..._

“I’ve never,” Will stopped, licked at his teeth and then continued, glancing to his right, “done this before.”

“I see,” again Hannibal retained his casualness, enviably so, “How long have you been on the Antryphodene?”

“Uh, about nineteen years. Nearly twenty.”

“Non-stop?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re lucky. Most suffer some form of long-term side effect by year ten.”

“I get bad allergic reactions,” Will said, feeling stupid for bringing it up, “sometimes. Not sure what to, and I never used to get them, just...” he cleared his throat and shook his head, face breaking into a rictus smile, “ _wow_ , why am I telling you this?”

“Would you rather talk about something else?”

“I don’t know,” _you never answered my question, you never answered me, you should answer me whether you treated Olmstead or not, did you treat him, did you, did you did you did you?_ “ _Shit_ , I don’t want to know...no I’d rather just,” he looked back to his right, to those legs, the hint of more; thinking appeared to be getting in the way, so Will decided not to think and instead asked, “can I touch you?”

“You can do anything you wish,” Hannibal said.

“Ok.”

Six words that seemed to cement the logic behind his seemingly illogical infatuation. _You can do anything you wish._ Hannibal Lecter, the first person to ever tell Will Graham he could be whatever he wanted to be, do whatever he wanted to, and the man wouldn’t run screaming.

And so he did, reaching out blindly with his right hand, palm flat. It hit skin, what must be a leg. There were hairs there, slightly raised at his touch. They felt velveteen as he moved his palm up, over what felt like a hip bone. His fingertips touched more, _soft and yet wiry_ , and Will thought he might have made a sound. A sound he didn’t think he’d ever made before, something between a growl and a keen. It forced his eyes to follow his hand, looking over to see that he was very close, closer than he’d realised. He watched, an odd sense of calm washing over him.

“Have you?” he asked.

“Have I?” Hannibal answered.

“Done this before?”

“I have. Three times.”

“Oh,” he wasn’t sure if his fingers twitched or he was trying to test the waters of how far he could go, “well, that helps. What did you do, the first time?”

The silence turned playful. When Will drew his eyes up to those watching him he was met with a smile.

“You are a singular creature,” Hannibal stated as he took hold of Will’s wrist.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that. Only yours is a much more...” Will inhaled deeply as Hannibal moved his shaking hand over and down, resting it upon his cock, the strange thing whose scent was making his blood fizz, “civilised description.”

“I always try to be civilised, when possible,” Hannibal said as Will rolled onto his side, facing the man; the tenseness in his limbs was dissipating, slipping away.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Not many would ask their partner to describe previous sexual encounters as foreplay.”

“Then I’m not many people.”

“As I stated before.”

The smile reappeared, followed by a small, subdued laugh that sounded more like an angry bee caught in a bell jar. Will found that, now he’d rolled onto his side, his body was leading him forwards with a strange magnetism, as if overwriting the paralysing fear and embarrassment that had struck it before. Will wondered if this was normal. Did this always happen? Would he always be struck by a strange sense of something _not-himself_ when his hormones ran rampant? Did that mean he wasn’t himself now? It seemed anathema to all those years spent on the suppressants, detesting those that simply gave in.

“The first,” Hannibal began as Will curled down, crawling closer with a sheen in his eye until he was level with that strange place where his hand rested; he lay his head upon Hannibal’s hip and stared, moving his fingers gently over the surface. The penis was soft to the touch and yet hard beneath pressure, hot and energetic, “nineteen seventy five. I was fifteen.”

“What was she like?” Will asked, narrowing his eyes as he watched the appendage react to his gentle touch.

“She?”

“Statistically a male alpha’s first is a female omega, of that time period anyway. Was I wrong?”

“No, you were correct. She was older. Nineteen. One of our downstairs maids. It was amateurish. Rather fumbling and unattractive. When she showed me her breasts I remember they looked like the uncooked dough the servants would bake for bread. I don’t relish the memory.”

“You don’t like women?”

“Flesh is flesh. I prefer something a little more intimate than simple, physical lust.”

 “You didn’t care about her.”

“Not particularly.”

“It was an experience then,” Will pushed up on his right arm and leaned on his elbow, turning to look up at Hannibal in his repose, “is that what this is for me? Are you my experience?”

“One in a list of many, I would hope. Unless you find me boring.”

“And what sort of experience am I for you?”

Lecter’s smile was difficult to decipher; _sinister or anticipatory?_   _Or both?_

Will shook his head and laughed. The room felt heavy. The low light became cocooning. Things seemed to weigh down on him. A memory of a conversation they’d had, not long after their first time working together.

_I don’t find you that interesting, Will had said._

_You will, Lecter had replied._

At the time it had seemed petty and arrogant. Now it seemed like a self fulfilling prophecy.

“I feel like...I’ve been drugged. This is odd. I _feel_ odd. Did you?”

“Drug you?” Hannibal asked, “In a way I suppose. I have read studies on the sexual activities of those who are subject to long term suppressants. It seems there is a correlation between them, in that all suffer from heightened reaction to alpha pheromones when the suppressants are ceased. First glutamate is released followed by adrenaline then oxytosin, in larger amounts than normal. So far you are a wonderful example of the test group.”

“Fear, then flight, then cooperation and attachment. Seems counterproductive to the process.”

“It depends,” Hannibal said; a hand appeared in Will’s hair which was still slightly damp from the rain. Will felt his bottom lip between his teeth as he grabbed for the hand, holding it tightly. Hannibal watched him, “adrenaline also helps subjects deal with pain. If you’re curious,” Hannibal nodded to the hand in Will’s grip, “the gland is located at the wrist, next to the cephalic vein.”

“Do you always lecture the people you sleep with?” Will asked as he turned the hand, exposing the vein before leaning in, running his nose along the vulnerable skin and breathing in. It was what he imagined taking a hit might feel like. Wouldn’t it feel like this? Maybe this was more instantaneous, he wasn’t sure. All his lectures on substances and substance abuse flicked through his mind like a clacking rolodex. He closed his eyes and knew he was gripping the skin too hard. Wondered if it would bruise. _There had been no bruising on Olmstead, only the clean, strict entry and exit wounds of the chisels and metre stick and Stanley blade; a statuesque abattoir._ He felt the dizziness again, “ _Christ_. You...”

“You may wish to slow down. Here.”

The hands that pulled him upwards were gentle. Hannibal folded him up like the tie he had removed, and yet Will felt as messy and loose as the clothes Hannibal had discarded on the floor. _How could it be the same? It couldn’t be the same, surely. One so gentle, so kind, able to commit such brutality_. He knew that wasn’t true.

 _Then someone capable of such connection_ , he reasoned, _capable of feeling what I feel. What I am. There’s no room in the profile for that. There’s no room for empathy._

At that moment Will wasn’t able to admit to himself whether it was his want to believe it or his instinct not to believe it.

When he next took notice of where he was Will found himself stretched out along Hannibal’s left side, slotted along his body. His head rested against a shoulder, his nose nuzzling in to find that wonderful scent he knew would be there at the neck, _pulsing out from below the jaw, next to the carotid artery_. His left hand snaked across the soft hairs on Hannibal’s chest while Will breathed deeply and felt like he might be tipping on the edge of some horrendous precipice. There was a giddy feeling in his gut. In the back of his mind, as he swallowed on a gag, he was worried he might throw up.

“I don’t feel...” he closed his eyes and lifted his hand to his mouth.

“It is normal. Your area postrema is detecting the pheromones as a toxin. The nausea will pass.”

“Will it be this miserable every time?”

“Well,” Hannibal said, brushing the curls back from Will’s forehead, “it is good to know I am not intended as a one night stand after all.”

“Who said the next time would be with you?” Will asked before retching, giving a brief sound of distaste at the bile which had jumped into his throat; _well,_ he thought, _so much for hysterical laughter being the most unattractive thing I could do tonight._

“Of course, how presumptuous of me.”

“Number two,” Will said, jumping on the distraction, “You haven’t told me about your second.”

A pause. Then the hand in his hair descended to the back of his neck.

“Perhaps not the best example.”

Will would have asked why but he had his mouth covered so he could breathe steadily without fear of completely ruining the night with vomit. Instead he looked up at Hannibal, finding him still utterly composed as always. Eyes finally found his.

“A professor in the college of medicine at the Lyceé in Paris where I studied. I was younger than the other students by two years and yet vastly superior in skill. I suppose that made me a target,” he blinked, only once, “it was not consensual.”

This time the bile came from another source. Will stayed silent as they broke eye contact. Hannibal rubbed at the top of his spine. The world seemed very small, as if they were hidden inside a casket. Will wondered if they could stay together in that deathly state. He thought he might be cold. _Am I dead from it?_ he wondered, _Am I a corpse to be found?_ He wanted to shake his head free of the thoughts, knowing they were not natural.

He wondered what his brain chemistry was doing to him. He wondered about the man responsible.

“Is that true?”

“Yes, it is. You doubt me,” said as a statement not a question.

“Sometimes I feel like you tell me things just to see how I’ll react, not because they actually happened.”

“True, I will not deny it. Unfortunately I am not lying this time.”

Will frowned and lowered his eyes. His left hand was doing zigzag patterns in between Hannibal’s pectorals. The hairs flopped back and forth like long grass in the wind. It was difficult not to lean in closer, rubbing their expanse of touching flesh up, then down, then up until the sensation was akin to the sparking shock of static. Will wished he could read him. Hannibal was calm and composed, even as Will’s nerves jangled and spat at the mere thought of _someone, anyone, hurting, touching, forcing_.

“Is he dead?”

“He is.”

“Then there must be ways to torment him.”

“You believe in heaven and hell?”

“No, but you do. Dante talked of lots of imaginative punishments for all sorts. The inner seventh circle is for violent pederasts; a desert of burning sand and burning rain,” Will bit down on his own anger at the thought of someone capable of such arrogant, greedy malice.

“Perhaps he received his punishment on earth, before he died. And I am sorry to correct you, I do believe in god but not in hell. Hell is a guilty construct. God is a moral one.”

“You mean you go in for the seven deadly sins and the commandments and all that? Didn’t peg you for it.”

“Oh, no you misunderstand. I mean to say that we can take solace in his example. God kills indiscriminately, and so do we. It is comforting, isn’t it? If there is a hell then God must live there too. That way, no one need fear their sins.”

“I thought that’s what the devil was for. To take all the bad press.”

“Maybe they are one and the same. How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Will took a deep breath, “a bit...mentally unstable, but I’m not going to throw up on you any time soon.”

“Good to know.”

It was odd to feel his body awakening. Before his mind had been desperate to get him here, to ask his question, to know the answer, and then to be as close as possible, practically another layer of skin upon his alpha. _His alpha_. Will rubbed at his face with messy fingers and made a growling sound, like an angry cat. The thought seemed ludicrous, and his mind was waking up too it seemed. Fighting back.

 _His alpha_. You shouldn’t be here. _When have you ever needed anyone?_ You are your own man, no one owns you. _This is all in your head_.

“Number three,” Will said tightly as he felt the hand at his spine circle round to tilt his chin up.

“Perhaps it is simpler to let me show you?” Hannibal asked, ever the gentleman; he waited until Will nodded before moving.

It was tricky to manoeuvre considering Will had tensed up. It made him feel jittery. Hypocritical. _What are you doing here?_ he asked himself. He remembered back to the impetus that had goaded him into knocking on Lecter’s door in the first place.

The trace.  
The link between Lecter and Olmstead.  
The ER doctor naming Lecter as the attending surgeon.  
The link that the man he was now straddling had yet to explain.

On his knees, Will gripped Lecter’s shoulders as the man sat up underneath him until they were face to face. All of the ins and outs of the investigation were rushing back in, trotting by like advertisements to his weak will.

_He would be powerful, egotistical, yet charming, aloof._

What was he doing here? Will felt long fingers trace his spine, tripping up and over the slight lumps of the bone through the skin.

_Involved in the medical profession, or perhaps retired. Aesthetic, educated, intelligent._

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” Will said suddenly, blinking; his pulse raced, but not as it had before.

_He would hide in plain sight because his confidence and his ability left him untouchable._

“If you would like me to stop, all you have to do is ask,” Hannibal said reasonably as he held Will steady with one hand at his waist, while the other teased its fingers at the slit behind his solid cock, rubbing steadily to build an irresistible warmth. Will let his head drop forwards, a moan of pleasure tickling his throat.

“Most wouldn’t. By now, most wouldn’t be able to stop,” his voice had fallen down to a whisper.

“I am capable of many things you are not aware of. All you need to do is say. Do you want me to stop, Will?”

_What are you doing here with this man who..?_

The kiss was not real. Almost _not-real_. Almost enough to shock the thought from finishing. Tilting his head deepened it, and Hannibal let him.

_Hannibal let him._

The fingers, two together, crooked before entering. Will took in a sharp inhale and frowned, eyes boring into the bedstead over Lecter’s right shoulder. He jerked a little, feeling the pad of a thumb against his clitoris as the fingers inside him began exploring. It was as the thumb began to move that Will realised he’d been holding his breath. Breaking the kiss was natural but unreal. Letting the breath out was like a relief that wouldn’t come, before drawing another deep. When he finally managed to find Hannibal’s stare it was dissolute, pupils dilated widely, as if the iris itself were contracting.

“Your eyes...” Will said breathlessly.

_Have they seen the red raw pain of humanity, displayed like sweet little pigs, trapped to walls and opened in bibles with tongues laughing in death? Such a fool, Graham. You told yourself not to be a fool._

“Vasopressin,” Hannibal said, his lip twitching familiarly as he closed his eyes and swallowed; it was the most Will had ever seen the man admit that he was out of control, “it is not only you whose hormones try and take control. It’s making me want to fuck you. Do you want me to fuck you?”

The words sent shivers across his skin. Real, _not real,_ real, _not real._

_It wasn’t real. It was not real._

“Yes,” Will nodded; he licked his lips, “how...how long did it last? Your third?”

“How long would you like it to have lasted?”

_How long did you keep them awake? Did you keep them awake to let them watch you, know you?_

“You’re...” Will closed his eyes and let out a stuttering moan as Hannibal added another finger, increasing the pace, “good at this.”

“I always enjoy compliments. From experience I find omegas prefer to be on the bottom. Would you like to try?”

“You keep asking me,” Will said, biting down on the need to cry out as his body spasmed with pleasure, “why do you keep asking me? I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.”

_I have no fucking clue what I’m doing._

“Yes you do,” Hannibal leaned in and caressed the fluttering pulse at Will’s throat with his tongue, sweet and slow, “listen to your instincts Will. They have never steered you wrong before. They brought you here to me, didn’t they?”

A murder. A sin. A little death. Will shook his head and leaned closer, fumbling his lips across that indecorous mouth. _Shut up_ , he wanted to shout, _just shut up_. _I don’t know who I am, I don’t know why I came here, I can’t believe my instincts because they tell me things I don’t want to know, I don’t like who I become off the suppressants but I like you, I like you a lot, and Olmstead brought me here but I’ll be fucking damned if I’ll think about him now._

Letting go with his right hand, Will reached down between them and wrapped his hand around Hannibal’s fully erect cock, straining between them as if it were a lifeline. Hannibal seemed either unaware of or unable to control the purr he let loose as Will gripped it tightly and stroked downwards until he hit the unmistakable bulge at the base. The feeling of the heat against his palm made him frown, his breathing erratic.

“You’re burning,” he murmured a little deliriously, blinking as he allowed himself to be rolled over, straightening out his legs as Hannibal loomed over him; he felt helpless in the face of it all, and it was wonderful, “am I burning too?”

“Yes, Will. My darling,” Hannibal stroked his face, smiling as Will turned into the palm and breathed in, “we burn together.”

Afterwards he couldn’t have said how long it lasted. At the time it seemed both quick and slow, time skewed by pleasure and chemicals in the brain. The pain of it was burning at every stage, as he opened himself, wanting to feel it, a strange and odd sense of loss and emptiness pervading him. And it did hurt, it hurt a fucking lot, but Hannibal was calm and patient and considerate and everything that Will had not believed an alpha in the midst of rutting was capable of being.

He clutched at the wide back under his palms and felt like he might break down. It was difficult to hold it all together, _the physical and the mental_ , and separate it out. Eventually he gave up, let go, allowed the steady rhythm to pick up speed and sweep him away. The feeling was bizarre and yet disturbingly erotic, _feeling that sensual cock gently pushed deep inside, caressing and teasing._

The rocking motion was hypnotic. There were words being spoken, the _hot wet breath_ was back. It spoke and he listened, eyes hazy and weary. There was a heat building inside that he couldn’t name, wasn’t even sure if it was real. A racing pulse that spoke of the poison rushing in his system and the need and the want and the lust and the _can’t know, won’t know, please don’t._

Reaching in between them Will brushed his fingers over his own sensitive cock and winced.

“Oh _god_...” was all he could utter before he came, shaking violently until he choked on his own breath and his eyes rolled up in his head.

It was all a little blurry after that. There might have been a voice, asking him something. Or perhaps telling him something. He wanted to tell the voice to fuck off. He was tired. Warmly sleepy. Fuzzy and content and in no way awake as he came round from a post-coital orgasm blackout. But the voice persisted until he replied with a grunt. Will’s eyes slit open like a paper cut.

“Will?” Hannibal was there, propped up on an elbow to his left, looking utterly composed despite the sweat tangled in his hair, “Ah, there you are.”

“Shut up,” Will groused, waving a pathetic hand towards the voice and the face that went with it.

“I see you are still tired, darling. Get some sleep.”

“I was asleep,” he said tetchily; when the warm weight pressed to his side made to retreat Will launched his weak hand after the retreating image, grabbing at what felt like hair, tousled and soft. He was amazed by how panicked he felt, even through the lethargy, “wait...”

A pause. There was a rustle of material and then fingers coaxed his to let go. Will took a long, sharp breath and felt his world tip about, floating on a rough sea.

“You have something you want to ask me.”

“Yeah. I mean,” Will yawned, hurrying it away and wishing he didn’t feel suddenly _so damn awake_ , “it’s something I already asked you. Before. Earlier tonight I mean.”

“Earlier?” Hannibal scratched at his nose and frowned softly, “forgive me if I don’t remember. Tonight has been rather eventful.”

“Alright. It was about Olmstead. The ER?”

“Oh, of course. I fear your scent was rather...distracting, darling. Earlier, I mean,” Hannibal said; somehow Will found the wherewithal to smile softly at his own words being mirrored back at him, “you asked if I had treated him at the ER a few years back. Do you have a date?”

“The ER surgeon whose name was on the paperwork said she'd been down for the evening shift but you'd covered for her. Uh,” Will had to rack his addled brain for the date, “Twenty seventh of March, twenty twelve.”

“Then I can certainly say it was not myself,” Lecter said with such confidence it shook Will’s fear into nothingness, “I was in a different state altogether. Washington, an overnight stay in order to see _Don Giovani_ at the JFK centre. A present from my opera society for my birthday.”

“Can anyone corroborate that?” Will asked on instinct.

“Several. Including the director Francesca Zambello, who was courteous enough to meet with me. We discussed the use of tonal dissonance within each fach. It was enlightening, I had a wonderful time.”

Some said that it felt like a weight was lifted from their shoulders when a problem disappeared. Will disagreed. Instead he felt covered, swallowed, cocooned in the embrace of it, so much so that it crushed all the doubts and fears into junk and made him sink down with a smile into the pull. He closed his eyes and smiled, then laughed softly and shook his head.

“Will, I have something I would like to ask you in return.”

“Ok.”

“Did you just have your first sexual intercourse with a man you suspected of being the Chesapeake Ripper?”

“I didn’t suspect anything,” he lied, the uneasiness returning, “I just...I just wanted to make sure I got my answer.”

“You are a terrible liar, darling.”

“Would it make you feel better?” Will said irritably, clamming up; the cocoon suddenly wasn’t so safe, “If I said I had yes? Would it make sense of the fact that they all say I’m fucking crazy?”

“No,” Hannibal said calmly, watching him with an infectious confidence, “but it would make sense of my own conclusion,” he reached down and cupped Will’s jaw gently caressing his lips with the pad of his thumb; Will swallowed and wondered if his moods would always be so taciturn where Lecter was concerned, “that you are utterly singular. More so than any other I have ever met and, if you are kind enough, I would like to get to know you even better.”

Will found his lips moving before his brain could catch up, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I was...I’m sorry.”

“Do not apologise. Never apologise to me Will,” Hannibal said, sitting up.

His hand seemed to be following the same directive as his lips, as it once more shot out without his conscious thought and grabbed Lecter by the forearm. The man looked to him with a soft inquisitiveness, one which made Will’s body light up with the memory of _hand and tongue and fingers and cock._ Taking a deep breath, Will forced himself to remember that he was supposed to be trying hard not to be a fool.

“Stay, would you?” he asked, “I’d like it if you...stayed.”

A pause, and then the sound of shifting material. A kiss against his forehead, chaste and affectionate. Then there were lips against his palm, and a warm weight settled across his left side. Will shifted to move underneath it instinctively and sighed, frowning to himself as he pushed as close as he could.

And despite the stress and the warm ache between his legs and the still venomous scent shifting down into his lungs, Will drifted off to the sound of words he would forget the next day.

“With you darling? Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also yes, there was a line from 'Interview with the Vampire' in this chapter. I love that film, in all its camp glory


	8. Impression/Understanding/Possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You fantasise about mutilating your co-workers often?”
> 
> “More than you'd think,” Will said with a small shrug, eyebrow raised and bottom lip pursed slightly, “but then most people have thought about killing someone at some time or another. I just have more of an arsenal to play with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonsoir my delightful readers, it has been some time since I've managed to find time to update my stories. I'm sorry if anyone was waiting for more, things have been pretty much full of work, work and more work. Thankfully I've had 3 weeks off and am starting a new job on Monday, which has regular hours and will actually be interesting! Things are good, and hopefully this mean I will get more writing done.
> 
> This set of pieces doesn't follow any strict timeline, all simply set around times Hannibal realised he was falling in 'love' with Will.
> 
> The next chapter I have planned is going to wrap up this story, so if anyone has any situations/things they would like to see between Will and Hannibal's life together before the end, leave a comment and I'll try and fit them into one last chapter before the end.

 It was a happy confluence of events, starting with an unexpectedly early rise. Hannibal, as a rule, never woke voluntarily before eleven. It had always seemed counterproductive to do what society deemed healthy, especially when it grated against his natural biorhythms. Dawn was invasive, and mornings were far too obedient.

Yet today had been a special occasion. An invitation had been extended, finally the ability to see the handywork from the other side. Something that pulled and stretched at his need to never conform to another's will.

“We could use a medical perspective,” Jack Crawford had said over the phone, his voice slightly tinny, “if it isn't too much trouble of course, Doctor.”

Always a covertly slimy element to Crawford's obsequiousness; perhaps it was the indentured nature of his grovelling. Little placations tacked on the end of sentences, like the tail on a particularly bitter donkey. Another alpha's submissiveness was always distasteful, even though useful and, in his case, inevitable. However...

This time he would allow it. This time Crawford's forced courtesy had been permitted. This time he would wake early. This time he would play at conformity.

Because today he had been invited to the smorgasbord.

When he first arrived at the crime scene it was almost a disappointment. He pulled up a little ways back from the cavalcade of black SUV's, all in a line like sullen horses beside an average suburban two storey, all white walls and flowery front garden. The day was overcast and slightly chilled, so he had worn his heavier winter coat, a soft grey plaid with dark brown trim for the pockets. Underneath a red fleece, hiding a soft blue shirt and grey tie to match. He'd been rather flattered with the outfit when he'd chosen it, even through tired morning eyes as he rummaged his wardrobe for something appropriate for such an occasion. All that effort, and not a single person paid him a blind bit of notice as he parked, exited the car and began looking for Agent Crawford.

It was almost insulting in its apathy.

The first person he did run into was a young man wearing a blue jumpsuit, scruffy stubble and black curly hair surrounding a pair of harassed brown eyes. Hannibal sniffed while observing him, as the man fumbled with his camera and sighed, rooting through the boot of one of the closest SUV's, yanking off his latex gloves in annoyance.

“Excuse me,” Hannibal said politely.

“I swear, it's just...” the man was muttering, “ _ugh_ fucking...”

“Excuse me,” Hannibal spoke up, taking a few steps forwards; the man looked up in annoyance, keeping his frown, “I am looking for Jack Crawford.”

“He's inside with the boy wonder,” the man said flatly, “you the surgeon?”

“Indeed,” Hannibal would have been angry was he not so impressed at such a young beta talking to an elder alpha in such a confident manner.

“He'll be out in a minute,” the man said, shaking his head, “I'm sure we'll do all the introductions then. And maybe I'll be allowed back in my damn crime scene once Will Graham's had his _alone_ time.”

There it was. Suddenly, an itch. The twitchy excitement that he'd experienced earlier that day had now jumped back into his throat. Firstly that Will Graham was here at all. There was a faint, _very faint,_ scent on the air; sweet and yet sickly like overripe fruit. Made him feel the need to breathe a little deeper as he walked towards the unassuming home surrounded by an impromptu fence of black and yellow police tape. _Savouring the hunt_. A chance to catch his prey unawares.

He had been told, or rather overheard, all the stories he could about intriguing little Will's talents. Heard the (rather ridiculous and absurd) claims that he was clearly psychic. Had heard that he liked time alone with the crime scene, sometimes with the bodies still in place if he could. Made people uncomfortable, clearly, but then people always feared what the didn't understand.

Hannibal always took advantage of any opportunity to enjoy new things, especially when offered up so neatly.

One officer, two officer, both admitting him politely and yet strictly to the scene. He suppressed a need to smile, instead looking around him as he walked up the slim, neatly paved path lined by small, round olive shrubs and beyond by smooth grass and peonies. He wondered if the killer had done the same. Did they enjoy the scent of the flowers as they approached, or were they only able to focus on their task? Hannibal breathed a little deeper, ferreting out the scents and categorising them.

In amongst the flowers and the grassy dew and the smell of forensic chemicals and plastic and nitrile gloves: there Graham nestled, out of sight, hiding.

The entranceway was the usual mess of tumbled shoes on a shoe rack, two pairs large, two pairs small, some wellingtons jumbled in a corner. The floor was carpeted in a soft beige, and, as he advanced into the house, the walls were an off cream. He frowned on observing the seventies bent of the furniture in the living room, wide armchairs and couches in teak, upholstered in mustards and yellows and browns. A set of ceramic flying ducks upon the wall. A false fireplace holding a three bar electric fire. Tacky. He hoped whoever took the house afterwards would have the good sense to modernise.

On hearing footsteps descending the stairs Hannibal made the quick decision to side step into the kitchen and keep out of sight behind the door. It was only a few moments later that Jack Crawford strode by, leaving the way Hannibal had entered, and shut the front door behind him. It was then Hannibal realised something else: the house was silent. No crime scene analysts, no photographs being taken, no cloth covered boot-steps. It seemed the man outside had been right, the house had been made clear for Will. He held his breath and closed his eyes, listening intently.

Then a creak, a few steps from...upstairs? Yes, he decided, upstairs on the other side of the house. He wished, as he normally did when going into another's house uninvited, that he had an idea of the layout in advance. Hannibal detested his victims being able to outmanoeuvre him, so entering and leaving the correct way was paramount, as well as blocking off escape routes. But as that information was sadly lacking, Hannibal made a snap decision to leave the kitchen as quickly as possible; it's windows were front facing and the last thing he wanted was Jack Crawford looking in and ruining his moment.

The stairs did not creak, thankfully, although they were covered with an unsightly layer of dust that made him feel itchy just walking across it. He had wanted to remove his shoes for stealth, but didn't think he'd be able to justify the action of replacing them when eventually caught in this act of voyeurism. Instead he stepped carefully and thanked the consistent layer of carpet covering every available floorspace. Even if it was unsightly with filth.

Upstairs led to an L-shaped corridor with four doors leading from it, one ahead of him, and three more off to his right. There was a large window in the longer part of the corridor which flooded everything with morning light. It seemed peaceful, as if he were simply the first to rise and wonder off to find others to join him for breakfast.

“ _I bring them both back..._ ” a voice from the far end of the corridor, the door ajar, leaking a voice speaking mechanically, “ _...to the place that I first saw them...no. No, not saw, imagined. You imagined them here, didn't you?”_ a rustle of paper, probably reports being consulted, “ _no, there was an unknown car outside. Repair truck no one could account for. You were watching. I watched you in here, which means the curtains were open.”_

It was irresistible to creep closer, but the chance of failure only increased with every step. Each foot against the floor gave chance to a creaking floorboard, or a missed-footing thump, or simply Will Graham exiting the room and seeing him there.

Heartbeat, _faster_. Physiological changes, dilation of the pupil, salivation. Only Graham affected him so. When his medical examiner had seen fit to malign his veracity and health, beating the man to death didn't tip his heart rate up over ninety beats per minute, _though it had made the meat wonderfully tender_. Now the very scent of another, a voice speaking in his language; it was enough to make him feel something he could not control. There was an exhilarating tang to his meals. Feasting on Will Graham made him fat and greedy. Always a need for more, even if he liked to deny it.

The blood thrummed in his fingers as he traced the wall to his left, avoiding family photos and pictures of lakes in summer.

The familiar scent grew stronger.

On reaching the door Hannibal stopped, pressed against the wall, and listened to the sound of curtains being drawn. Will was setting the scene it seemed. Across from him was a large picture frame, a Klimt wrapped in gold and sensuousness. There, amongst the mosaic of shinning and shimmering light, was a figure moving, reflected upon the glass. A shadow walking, talking, breathing in the imagined skin of another.

“But that's not the reason. I don't kill you just to...” Hannibal watched the shadow hand reach out as if to touch, “no, this isn't about you, or I would have...so this is why I moved you both here afterwards, but first...the window. This about you, _seeing me_.”

Hannibal edged closer to the door frame. The light from the room tipped his fingers. _Seeing me_. The words danced around his reality. The thought blurred with the idea of his own masterpieces, of Graham walking through his work and slipping inside of his mind. The scent of the shadow increased as his nostrils flared. His salivary glands overproduced.

“I am the product. I am the sum of the whole,” the shadow voice said, breathing deeply with understanding, slight elation, “I didn't kill with the first shot. Neither of you will die without seeing me take what is rightfully mine.”

He could practically feel the voice against his skin. It was soft, cold and sharp. Deadly in its intent. Calm in its delivery. Hannibal felt the need to close his eyes, savour only that voice and it's chameleon quality.

And then, suddenly, the shadow moved. Then it turned from the shadow on the glass into real, solid Will Graham. Hannibal, holding his breath, could have sworn the felt Graham's jacket brush his fingertips as the man walked out and turned away from him, moving down the corridor with a field report clutched in one hand, his other balled into a fist. And the eyes, _his eyes so grey with a hint of sky blue,_ were set, dark, almost preternatural. Filled with an inner anger and contempt, buried deep beneath something soft. A calm acceptance Hannibal had not noted in him before.

The spike in Hannibal's heartbeat had reached the top of the roller-coaster, high above the earth observing all below and knowing at any moment the fall would come. He followed as Will moved to the next room and began walking another's footsteps _._ Bewitching him.

“I don't take them back to the bedroom,” Will explained to himself, walking into the room as Hannibal followed behind softly, “It's here, it's the children. I need to show them because I was them, once. It's me. I've come home.”

It was impossible not to stand in the doorway and watch him, Hannibal could not let go of the contact that it gave. Watching Will survey the room with his removed stare, alight with something akin to passion, and something akin to an inner violence. To watch his hands move as if to drag, as if to maim. To watch him while he dissolved down into his basest instincts so so as to pour himself into the skin of another. _Feeling without feeling_.

A turning of the head. The darkness in the eyes did not dissipate as they zeroed in on him. Expecting an attack, Hannibal readied his muscles, balancing slightly forwards on his feet. Having watched him, now Hannibal found himself watched. _Eyes with no emotion, brimming with a need to complete their design._

“You know you can't be here,” peremptory and cold, but not surprised, “get out.”

A moment in which Hannibal did not move, simply observed everything he could hope to, cataloguing body language and voice pitch and facial expressions; everything he could compare later. He played with the idea of continuing: _where it might take them, where it might lead._ But he was sure he had everything he needed. With a small, curt nod he turned to leave.

“Not out the front door,” came the voice from behind him, “Jack will be waiting for me there. Use the back. Check for Katz before you leave, she's working the back garden.”

“You don't wish for them to see me? Or you don't wish for them to ask questions about what I have seen?”

“I'm not here to be your straw man Doctor Lecter, I know you've already made up your mind.”

“You always presume I have my own answers,” Hannibal answered, head cocked slightly, “and no imagination,” Hannibal trailed his eyes across Will's arm, down to the report and his still strict fists, “So many possibilities.”

Silence. Will watched him carefully, eyes slightly narrowed. Then a smile, _not the normal pleasant, warm smile he was used to_. With the cuff of his jacket Will scrubbed at his face, a small frown appearing and disappearing, eyes twitching; _almost as if he knew the expression he wore there was not his own._

“Why now?” Will asked.

“An opportunity presented itself.”

“That was all?”

“If there had been an easier way I would have taken it. Something tells me,” Hannibal said, sniffing, “that you are not one to open up without provocation.”

“True. Only I don't think you really know what provocation means with me.”

“It was a risk I was willing to take.”

“Oh I don't know," Will said, eyes as sharp as his smile once more, “something tells me you don't ever fear risks.”

The thrill came. It swelled and morphed and settled in his stomach like the warm glow of whiskey after drinking. _I know you_ , Will's words said, the likes of which he had never encountered with someone who did not _know_ him completely, of which there had been very few, and now only one remained living.

“You wanted to see what I would do, didn't you,” Will said; it wasn't a question.

“And now I have my answer.”

“Yeah, me too.”

He looked up; grey eyes watching him tight, close. Hannibal smiled with the sweet sting of surprise as he finally realised that neither of them had come to work that day. The smell, slightly rotten sweet: _Graham was back on his suppressants, and therefore Graham had been expecting him; Graham had drawn him in like a siren; Graham had led him around the house, probably known that he was there all along_. He felt as if he'd walked into a spider's web, and now all eight eyes were upon him. The thrill intensified.

The thought of facing him, true identities revealed, no veil of secrecy between them...

“I will leave you to your work,” Hannibal tipped his head.

“I'm sure you will,” Graham replied, eyes watching his every move as he left, “sure you will.”

* * *

The sun on wet autumn leaves shone as blood cast upon the brown earth. Rustling little snakes, the trees in the breeze. Hannibal drove with the window down to hear the symphony. The air was sweet and fresh, wet with that morning's rain.

Will Graham lived just as he'd thought when they first met; far out from civilisation in an isolated community of his own making. Wolf Trap appeared to him as a desolate house dropped ramshackle in a mottled landscape, rough, blunt and mistrustful. Much like its inhabitant.

The Bentley suffered a little with the uneven driveway, but eventually reached even ground at the house's front. When exiting it was distinct the difference in sound and smell from the highway. There was a heavy smell of wet earth and decaying vegetation. The air was so clean it seemed he could feel it in every inch of his being. The house watched him suspiciously, as if Hannibal standing there in his maroon double breasted overcoat, hiding a red shirt, brown waistcoat and tie, and grey trousers with brown shoes was too much colour for it to trust. He sniffed, puling his surroundings down into his lungs. Graham's preternatural existence belonged here, not a sound of civilisation or another human soul for miles. The chill morning mist upon the ground simply completed the illusion.

Knocking at the door Hannibal noted the immaculate condition of the house itself. Painted crisply in white it seemed to shine in the sunlight, not a crack to be seen. Its quaint southern curls on the porch columns added a tug of interest. Graham seemed such a practical man that the small spin on the house's otherwise almost Georgian simplicity was intriguing. There were thick clusters of well trimmed ivy climbing up the end of the patio railing. Life against the white background.

Hannibal watched for a raised blind and listened for the sliding of the chain lock. When nothing came he knocked again. He stood for four minutes before deciding to investigate. There was no answer at the backdoor, only a littering there of half finished dog bowls and a water trough. The large barn just a little away from the house was locked up tight.

Hannibal turned back to look at the house and smiled.

Graham's lock was simple, and thankfully there was no chain, allowing for a simple lock picking. The door opened without a squeal, which he noted for later. Closing the door he surveyed first impressions: armchairs of varying comfort were littered in the living room, all second hand if their eclectic nature was anything to go by. A rather fetching antique rug lay on the floor, covering attractively varnished floorboards. At the far end stood an impressive cobblestone fireplace holding nothing but a small electric fire, and surrounded by immaculate shelves holding well ordered books, file folders, neat archive boxes, specimens in box frames and a select few artworks that seemed to have caught Will's eye. The other side of the room held a chest of drawers and various desks and small bookshelves, all caught with homely contents of books and lamps, tables covered with machinery in a state of being reassembled or pulled apart.

First impressions were somehow soft and warm, deceptively so. Furnishings were upholstered in flocked material, the rug was worn and almost rumpled, the clusters of home furnishings on desks was cosy and the pale green of the walls was soothing. Only on second glance did he pick up on the obsessive neatness, the need for every folder, piece of paper and small framed painting to be exactly where it was in relation to everything else. Chairs sat at perfect forty five degree angles to the coffee table. On the coat rack by the door the jackets and scarves were hung by shortest to longest and separated by use. In the chest of drawers each drawer was ordered to almost ludicrous degree of methodicalness, identical white nightshirts, socks and underwear layered like cake icing, coding out Graham's need for repetition and synchrony.

The kitchen barely existed, nothing but a small hob and oven, a few cabinets and a sink. Upstairs showed only a functional bathroom, old fashioned bath with a shower curtain, toilet and sink. In the bedroom the bedspread was military neat, and the surroundings were sparse above a ratty white rug: used for sleeping only, no luxury. The wardrobe held outfits hung already assembled on individual hangers, jeans and button down shirts and t-shirts and Henleys. Little material suits to burrow inside, it sat like an costume designer's rack on a film set.

Hannibal detected an animal instinct from sniffing around the floor plan. The house was quite open plan, in that each seating area afforded a view of the next two adjacent rooms through wide doors and arches in the walls. It would be difficult to sneak up on anyone in this house without care. No chairs held their backs to windows which themselves were large and well placed to survey the front driveway. Eyes peering out at the world, to see predators coming.

Everything outlined a pure silhouette of a man so capable of hiding himself behind what he saw as a perceived societal need for civility and familiarity that he kept his more undesirable traits disguised beneath the mask it provided. The obsessive need for control inside deep drawers, the plain colours hiding a vivid and vainglorious imagination that others saw as disturbing, the attempt at nestled collections of items that tried to appear homely but, instead, came across as trying too hard, the utterly precise nature in everything he did from fixing machinery to moulding himself into the minds of serial killers hidden in tight file folders and an easygoing penchant for fishing alone.

Hannibal was sure that, if Will could have gotten away with it, there would surely be one chair, one table, one bed, one wardrobe and chest of drawers and very little else. The pieces that were there, Hannibal thought as he very lightly drew his fingers over a tall painted scene of a woodland, had been chosen with great care. Things had been bought with a need for that specific item, rather than any idea as to how they would all fit together. A need for necessity, not what was expected by others.

Was the man afraid? He mused. Clearly not many people came out to visit, and yet Will felt the need to hide. Perhaps, Hannibal thought as he noted the outdated television and radio, that Will wasn't truly hiding himself from visitors and the judgemental eyes of normal people. Will Graham seemed to be trying too hard to convince himself that he was who he portrayed on the surface, and not the cunning and predatory animal that rested beneath his skin.

The space was so utterly Will Graham that Hannibal felt as if he were standing inside of the man's mind, split down the middle by society's specifications, so much so that Will couldn't pull it all together and be wholly himself. A man that Hannibal could tell would be easily malleable if handled with care, but also sharp as a razor when it came to recognising manipulation. This game would be a perfect mix: agrodolce.

Hannibal sniffed, smelling not a mote of dust on the air; running his finger along a nearby sideboard came away clean as a whistle. He imagined the entire house was exquisitely hygienic. It was almost maddeningly delightful.

Then a shiny sparkle from one of the nearby desks. On closer inspection he found a clamp holding a half finished fishing fly, intricate in its pillar box red feathers. Hannibal observed it through the magnifying glass suspended before it. Sitting down in the chair at the desk he looked through the various bits and pieces used to build the flies. On a whim he chose another feather, observing its length carefully and testing the softness with his fingertips. Was this a sacred ritual, making the flies that would catch the fish he sought? Were all his lures so beautifully designed? Did Graham ever see his need to play the hunter with well crafted bait as ironic? Hannibal wondered, for a placid moment, whether Graham could be baiting him right now.

Taking a piece of twine Hannibal attached the feather to the lure with expert precision, tying it tight before snipping with the wire cutters. A small addition that only he would know of. A piece of himself there, like a seed in Will Graham's bone arena; one that would grow a mighty oak. Pressing the pad of his thumb to the sharp point of the fishing hook a blob of blood welled up. Hannibal brought it around the curve of the metal, leaving a fresh but almost invisible rust red stripe across the dark hook. Then he sat back and observed the fly, picking up the daylight seeping in through the pale blinds. He put his finger in his mouth and sucked; sour iron and a small hint of the turpentine Will probably used to clean off any stray glue.

Just an intimately small speck of another in that precise and neurotic environment. Hannibal smiled before standing up, making sure the chair was correctly in position before leaving and relocking the door.

And when he turned, there it was. He felt as if he should have expected it, somehow, and decided to treat it as such. A medium sized, slightly shaggy and dirtily matted auburn furred dog. It sat down on the mud in front of the porch at the bottom of the stairs and watched him. Hannibal watched it in return. As he descended the stairs the dog remained still. Hannibal eventually reached the animal and stopped. They watched one another and Hannibal remembered being able to smell dog on Will on occasion, although the inside of his house showed he owned no pets. Only the food bowls on the back porch gave away his need for company.

Holding out his hand the mutt sniffed tentatively and then offered a cautious lick. Hannibal waited until the dog was content and then stroked the creature's head. It stood up and trotted off, every few steps turning to look at him over its shoulder. After fifteen feet it stopped and waited. Eventually Hannibal acquiesced, following.

Woods thin enough to enjoy and easy enough to navigate. He assumed Graham walked this route with his stray often if the dog was this well versed in the well trodden route. And if the multiple dog bowls at the back porch meant anything then there might even have been more than one dog rummaging the under brush. The light shifted with every rush of the breeze, playing kaleidoscope with his eyes, the needles and leaves like a woollen carpet under his inappropriate shoes. The dog walked ahead, checking every now and then that he was there with a serious glance backwards from dark eyes.

Eventually they reached a spot slightly higher than the flat land below, and the dog stopped. Hannibal watched the creature with interest. Why had this trust been extended to him? Had it smelled Graham upon his clothes? Or was there a deeper connection that the dog recognised? Turning to look back the way they had come he stopped at the sight: the house sat there, perfectly framed by the hanging branches, not far but far enough. The structure seemed to sit upon the mist, as if it were floating in a lake. The eddying breeze swirled the mist, as if fish were disturbing the water to feed. It was a fair sight. Will's ability to ferret out the unusual and marvellous obviously extended to more than just the macabre.

He turned to the dog and looked down at it, bedraggled and solemn.

“Thank you,” he said, tipping his head down and to the side, keeping eye contact; the dog simply watched him, but stood up and returned with him as he walked back the way they had come.

As he walked the telltale sound of a truck trundling up the long driveway alerted him. Breaking the edge of the wood Hannibal observed Will Graham exiting his faded blue Volvo truck, closing the door behind him with a dull thump. The man seemed utterly at home, even with Hannibal's surely unexpected arrival. He stood by his truck, which he had parked neatly by Hannibal's Bentley, and waited for the two travellers to reach him.

“Good morning Will,” Hannibal greeted.

“You get up late, Doctor Lecter,” Will noted, reaching out as the dog approached and stroking its head.

“Hannibal, please,” came the reply, “we did agree first names or nothing.”

There was a small moment of tension, before Will smirked and shook his head, “I see you've met Winston.”

“I was unaware a stray could own a name.”

“Well,” Will said, watching as the dog trotted off around the house, probably to partake of the food there, “maybe it's just my label for him then. I'm pretty sure he doesn't answer to it.”

There was a silence but for the birds, then Will turned back and retrieved some groceries from the car. Before Hannibal was able to offer his help Will had placed a tall paper bag in his arms filled with seasonal vegetables. If it wouldn't have given away his rouse Hannibal would have ask how on earth Will hoped to cook this tempting fare on his pathetic stove. Instead he took advantage of Will inviting him inside without having to say so. Apparently it was a given that Hannibal was welcome.

“Just put it on the counter,” Will said as he put his own bag on the coffee table and emptied its contents: screws, rivets, nuts and bolts, wire. A litany of mechanical pieces in thick plastic pouches emerged and were set out neatly.

Hannibal put the groceries down and turned to watch Will as he took off his coat and hung it on the rack in just the correct place, then took off his boots and put them beneath. Hannibal followed the example, enjoying the feel of Will watching him do so.

“You here about the most recent?” Will asked as he started putting away the vegetables.

“Jack asked me to bring you out a box of treats,” Hannibal said as he observed Graham operating in his environment; he wondered if his own presence was affecting that interaction at all or if it was normal for Will to be agitated while storing foodstuffs, “medical documents Agent Crawford said that you requested. I collected them from St James.”

“But first you thought you'd come here and take a walk in the woods with my dog.”

“Oh? I thought you didn't have a dog.”

There was a micro-hesitation in Will's movements, a soft whispering sound that might have been something muttered under his breath, before he continued. The stray and his court of strays. Hannibal managed a small smile at the thought. When Will looked to him Hannibal did not look away. They held each other's stare until Will finally looked elsewhere, beginning to rummage through cupboards and pull out a bag of coffee, two cups. A stovetop percolator made an appearance, which Hannibal admitted he found surprising.

“The casework is in the car if you would like me to fetch it,” Hannibal offered.

“You had breakfast?” he was asked instead.

“Unfortunately nothing appetising. We are expected at Quantico in an hour.”

“I have...” Will seemed to hesitate, less to think of ingredients and more as if he was suddenly questioning his offer, “...uh, I can make French toast.”

“I would hate to cause inconvenience.”

“You're a guest,” said like a man who had no idea how treat them.

“Get many of those, Will?”

“How do you like your coffee?” Will said, ignoring Lecter's comment altogether.

“Black, please. And strong.”

Watching Will cook was calming in its meticulousness. Each stage of the process played out with precision, down to how long each piece of bread soaked in the egg and cream mixture, to how long each were fried, to how much coffee was put in the stovetop coffeemaker, how tightly it was tamped down, allowed to percolate slowly.

They sat at a dining room table that looked as if it had never been eaten at, instead quickly cleared to make it look civil. They ate in silence, Hannibal's a happy one as he enjoyed the custard-like centre of his toast and the sweetness of the icing sugar. Will's silence more a terse confusion: a slightly sullen crow, watching him with a beady and yet constantly evasive stare. The meal was enjoyable, for more than just the food. Hannibal felt nourished with a successful morning's harvest; Will Graham had scraped forward a few notches towards the shining trap, even if his eyes were still wary, and Hannibal had confirmed his suspicions.

Sitting in this tiny speck of wood floating on misty waters, he could say with certainty that the inevitable catch would be something he had dreamed of for many years. And well worth the wait.

* * *

 

An eternity, he was sure, would have been shorter.

“It may be necessary to test the concurrence of curved lines in two exhibits similarly enlarged...”

Hannibal trailed the heads sloping away from him in the lecture theatre, little silver lined silhouettes. He played a quick game with himself to see if he recognised any of them, coming away with a couple he could be sure of. It grew tiresome and he stopped.

“Greasy finger-marks may also be acted on chemically, so as to bring out details by the application of osmic acid...”

He suppressed a sigh and waited for the part he'd come to hear, the only reason that he had agreed to attend. Telling himself it would be worth it, to learn some of the inner workings of their most recent case. Also attending as a favour to Will Graham that he would happily collect later. That the man had asked if he'd like to come with him to Price's lecture, which needed an invite, was a key step in his plans. When looking to the seat to his left, however, he was unable to withhold his disappointment.

“With the exception of acromegaly and skin-peeling after acute fevers, I could have conceived of no biological reason why changes might be anticipated in those patterns...”

Will Graham sat next to him, chin down at his chest, asleep. Hannibal let out a tight chuff through his nose and pressed his lips together until thin. This was beginning to feel like a wasted journey. He listened to Price continue his lecture, speaking about the odd case of Georgia Madchen and her sock-like shedding skin. Elongated fingerprints seen as a first in forensic history. Hannibal refused to wake the man who had invited him, waiting instead for the clapping crowd at the end of the show to rouse Will accusingly. Blinking awake Will drew in a sharp breath, sitting up, catching Hannibal's eye as the man clapped along with everyone else.

Neither spoke as they shuffled down the stairs with the other attendees, but Hannibal hoped his dissatisfaction was palpable. Meeting up with familiar faces in the refreshment room did nothing to dispel his mood. Beverly Katz and Jack Crawford stood with fake sparkling wine, Jimmy Price joining them as Zeller trailed behind, trying to snag a drink from passing waiters.

“Did you enjoy the lecture?” Crawford asked, looking as if he were enjoying an inside joke.

"As always, your expertise is fascinating Mr. Price,” Hannibal said, a little confused when Price grinned, “I am missing something.”

“You look pissed,” Katz said bluntly, “let me guess. Will started snoring five minutes in.”

“Give me credit,” Will said, eyes still heavy lidded, “it was at least ten.”

“He does it every time,” Price said, seeming entirely unconcerned and somewhat chipper, “heard it all before, huh Will?”

“Yup,” Will said, rubbing his eyes, “sorry Jimmy.”

“Don't worry about it. You stay awake when I talk in the morgue, that's all that matters to me.”

“You just like it when he kisses your ass,” Zeller, joining them empty handed, seemed more sour than usual.

“The worm that destroys you is the temptation to agree with your critics,” Hannibal said.

“Couldn't find a drink, huh?” Price said dryly, taking a swig in Zeller's face.

“Enjoying that fruit juice, Jimmy?” Zeller asked.

“Please, if anyone gets to make fun of my recovering alcoholism, it's me,” Price said.

“Please guys, do we have to psychoanalyse out of work?” Beverly said, only partly joking.

“It's always hard and ugly to know someone can understand you without even liking you,” Zeller said, shaking his head as Price simply began enthusing at him about his lecture.

Beverly was smiling into her drink, muttering to Will who was giving her a wry look in return. Crawford continued to talk, demanding Hannibal's attention; he pretended to listen while eavesdropping on the pair just a few feet to his left.

“Ah, come on,” Will said in return to whatever Katz had whispered; she leaned in close and continued, Will smiling despite his tone, “you're not right, you know that?”

“Don't I though,” she said, shrugging.

The feeling that had been niggling inside his chest squirmed. Hannibal felt suddenly nauseous, enough to worry him. He took a drink of cheap alcohol and hated that it was all he had to swallow down his rising bile. Is this what it would cost to be attracted to an omega? He had assured himself that this courtship would be his game, under his control. But biology was simple and cruel. It made him feel a distinct sense of helplessness, something he had not felt since his seventh year on this earth. He was a man of logic, of calculations leading to outcomes. Too much imagination played a part in his theories being mainly untested scribblings on thick pads of paper, astrophysics and string theory trying to bring the broken tea cup back to its untouched state. Now he was finding himself adrift amidst a sea of unforgiving chemicals: serotonin, dopamine, pheromones.

Hannibal made small talk until the night began to wind down. He congratulated Price on his work, made promises to Crawford to continue their working relationship, said a polite goodnight to Zeller and managed to pry Graham and Katz apart long enough to offer Will a ride home. As they drove Hannibal let his mind drift, thinking about his newest revelation. With Graham's scent filling his nose Hannibal decided not to tie himself up too much with theories and needs; instead Occam's Razor would be his guide.

“You're angry,” Will said suddenly, “what did I do?”

“You misunderstand,” Hannibal refuted, “I am more confused.”

“About what?”

“Your insistence that I join you tonight when you were clearly not interested in my presence.”

“Feeling left out? That's a first.”

“I don't appreciate being mocked.”

Silence, but for car wheels thrumming. Will rubbed his nose and sat back, relaxing as much as seemed possible.

“I'm sorry,” he said easily, “look I...I didn't mean to make you feel...” he let out a puff of breath and laughed, eyes smiling, “next time I'll go on my own.”

“On the contrary, I found it very interesting. Your co-workers are their own tribe, I can appreciate that. Price seems to crave attention.”

“I like Jimmy fine. But sometimes he labours on about the print index for so long I think about what he'd do if I cut his fingers off.”

“Conclusions?”

“Probably scream a lot. It would be just as irritating.”

“You fantasise about mutilating your co-workers often?”

“More than you'd think,” Will said with a small shrug, eyebrow raised and bottom lip pursed slightly, “but then most people have thought about killing someone at some time or another. I just have more of an arsenal to play with.”

“Anyone in particular?” Hannibal tread as carefully as he could.

“Oh, uh,” Will screwed up his eyes and seemed to be contemplating how wise it was to have this conversation, “I have a recurring dream about killing Jack Crawford with a hammer. Whenever he purposefully ignores me I can't really help it.”

“I often have a fantasy of pushing Marissa out of a window.”

“Your boss?” Will asked.

“Yes. She is a detestable woman, and very tall. I wonder how she would land. She stands next to open windows all the time. It would be almost effortless.” Hannibal said, noting Will's mirth; he decided to push further, “And what of myself?”

Will's eyes jumped to him, sharpening. Then he looked away, out of the window at the passing city. Scars of reds and yellow and neon ripped past. The city looked like a sparkler on bonfire night, reflected in Will's eyes like a firework.

“You want to know how I've thought of killing you.”

“I am in anticipation,” Hannibal said blatantly; a need to give Will as much space to move as possible, to hear dark words spill.

Will watched him with a velvet softness, if it were dragged through with barbed hooks ready to catch. Hannibal stayed aloof, teasing out the treat.

“...When we first met you used to tell me a lot of things I didn't want to hear. If I entered a room and you were there I knew I'd have a fight on my hands to stay civil. You made me arrogant and savage. I hated it. Still kind of do. I used to think of...something heavy.”

“Baseball bat?” Hannibal suggested.

“Golf club,” Will corrected.

“Oh?”

“Leaves an interesting blood spatter. Never seen it? Thin, almost clean spray lines. Like a Pollock. And it takes skill to use it. Easier to miss. You need to mean every swing or it wont connect.”

“Your knowledge always fascinates me,” Hannibal said, replacing the words _thrills me_ with something more appropriate. Although, considering how inappropriate their conversation was Hannibal wondered whether there was a need to censor himself.

“It comes in handy when you're feeling...” Will left the sentence hanging.

“Enraged?” Hannibal offered.

“Homicidal,” Will said, “or a hot mess, if you want to use Beverley's label.”

A hit of that squirming, that roiling nausea at the mere mention of the name. He knew it was unreasonable and unfounded, which only made it worse. It was with disgust that he realised the reason for his reaction. Is this jealousy? That was what he asked himself as he once more caught the grey wolf's stare in his peripheral vision. Yes, he would have answered had the question been verbal. There was a need to be honest to allow Will to drift closer, closer, until it was impossible to tell the difference between one man and the other. A shadowed mirror, staring into the void on the other side. The thought of it was exhilarating. He surprised himself with how much he wanted it to be a truth.

Risks were not part of his life, but now he felt _risky_. It would be like living in the lion's den, but then the tragedy was not to die, but to be wasted. In the end it was the simple solution to a problem he didn't realise existed.

“I would like you to come home with me,” Hannibal said, hands turning the wheel slowly to change his route.

“You would huh?” Will asked, jaded, “I think I can see where this is going...”

“On the contrary,” Hannibal said, making Will twitch his attention closer, “There's plenty of room for your collection in my library. I have a wonderfully located guest room. It gets the sun in the evening, is warm throughout the day. I am not inimical to pale green, if you want to change the paint. Or if you are not adverse to losing some personal space, my bedroom is large enough to share.”

Stopping at a red light and cranking the handbrake up allowed Hannibal time to look at his passenger. Will was staring at him, eyes dark, brow low. He looked like a snake sitting under a rock, waiting for a hand to come near. Hannibal raised a brow and looked back to the road, pulling out as the light turned green.

“I will not be able to offer you the isolation you need, but I would hope my company would not disturb that equilibrium,” Hannibal said as he indicated right.

“You're asking me to move in with you,” Will said bluntly.

“Yes.”

“Uh huh,” Will drew the words out warily.

“A rather vague acceptance.”

A laugh, low but warm, “I wasn't...uh...”

Hannibal allowed Will to mull over his amusement. For a moment he wondered what Katz had whispered into Will's ear; telling him secrets or pointing out the obvious? Had she seen his plans even before Hannibal himself? He refused to underestimate someone Will respected.

“It appears I am once again not in on the joke,” Hannibal said a little stiffly.

“Does that matter?”

“That depends entirely on...”

“I'll need a lab. That's what I use the barn for at home, so I'll need a replacement.”

As they pulled into his street, once again Lecter felt a flush. Manipulation and satisfaction: from what he knew of Will Graham the man would never have agreed to something so drastic so very easily. Once more he had followed his own temptations and ended up with a collar around his throat; Invisible, tight. Hannibal felt a warm glow encapsulate his evening. It occurred to him in that moment that with all his knowledge and intrusion, he could never entirely predict Will, or own him at all. Graham knew what he wanted, and he'd made sure it was exactly what Hannibal wanted, whether he liked it or not. Thankfully for Graham, Hannibal loved nothing more than playing the game with a willing participant.

“I do not wish to rush you.”

“Yes you do,” Will said knowingly, “but that's alright. I can be rushed, from time to time. You're not the only one who makes snap judgements.”

“We assign a moment to decision, to dignify the process as a timely result of rational and conscious thought. But decisions are often made of fermented feelings, bitter and stringy. I enjoy your raw motility.”

They sat in the driveway, looking up at Lecter's dark town house in all it's Edwardian appeal. So far from Will's ship on the sea, but so close to the place he wished to create for them. Hannibal tried to imagine a world with Will at every corner of it; sprightly, evasive and stimulating. There would be much to do, and lots to draw a veil across. Will was sharp and Will was capable but Will was blind in the face of affection.

“I hope you will like it here,” Hannibal said as he unlocked the door and held it open as Will stepped inside almost cautiously, looking simultaneously traumatised by his own rashness and excited by the prospect, “I hate to think of you lonely.”

“Then you must hate to think of me.”

“Will, my darling,” Hannibal said, reaching out to cup his face; Will leaned in the touch subconsciously before blinking and lifting his cheek, rubbing at his face, “if you'd let me I would have it that you could never be alone again.”

“Sounds awful,” Will smiled darkly, “I love it already.”

He was charming in the way a cub is charming, a small cub that will grow up to be like one of the big cats. One you can't play with later, unless you were a big cat yourself. To know that they were twinned souls was gratifying, beatifying, _divine_.


End file.
